Khumalo family loses sons in KZN killings

INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed dance choreographer Delani Khumalo, 41, and his brother are among the victims of the simmering racial conflict that has pitted the Indian residents against their black neighbours over the past two weeks in Phoenix, north of Durban.

Estimates put the death toll from the recent riots at 300, with several others still unaccounted for.

Khumalo was driving with his brother Mondli when they were accosted by an armed Indian mob, who were ostensibly keeping watch over their neighbourhood against threats of looting and violence. The KwaMashu-born brothers were searching for a petrol station.

A memorial service was held for the duo at the Sivananda High School in KwaMashu on Thursday morning.

Delani was applauded for having flown the South African flag high on international dance platforms.

The provincial Health Department this week denied claims that a Phoenix mortuary had reached its 500 capacity, saying that there were only 128 bodies and that “not all could be linked to the shootings of the past two weeks”. Phoenix alone accounts for about 20 of the deaths.

Minority Front leader Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi said the eruption of violence in both KZN and Gauteng caught everyone by surprise.

“Even the president, on his visit to Durban, was not sure what the causes of the violence and looting were. He started by saying it was tribalism, then economic sabotage and then it was an insurrection. He was telling us surely what he was privy to. But everyone else was caught totally unawares,” she said.

Thakur-Rajbansi, from Chatsworth, said Phoenix, like all Indian communities, was very peaceful.

“People only knew that they were under attack but were not sure from whom. So when the call came for them to defend their communities, many people did that. In the process, many innocent people lost their lives.

“But my plea is that we should refrain from labelling the situation in Phoenix as racial tension. This is stoking the fires unnecessarily.”

She said the same thing in Parliament on Thursday.

“It is only a thorough investigation that can tell us exactly what happened.”

In her book, every death is regrettable, whether Indian or black.

“We are a people united in our diversity, as the Constitution says. A lot of innocent people died. It is not fair to say the situation is racial. The investigation must be fair for the truth to come out.”

Crispin Hemson, director of the International Centre of Non-violence at the ML Sultan campus of the Durban University of Technology, wants to tread carefully before labelling the deaths as acts of racism. “It is too early to make a strong generalisation about the racial nature of the killings. However, the allegation that black people were being targeted in Phoenix has not been challenged by any evidence I have seen. If people have that evidence, they should come forward,” he said.

But do Indians and blacks in Durban have a history of conflict?

Hemson said: “There have been tensions over many years. These groups were constantly set up against each other historically. For example, white sugar farmers in some cases used African supervisors who could treat Indian cane workers very harshly. The fact that Indians were in business and there were cases of exploitation fuelled division. Then white businesses would use Indian people as supervisors over African people, creating a further sense of resentment.” He added: “In some areas, there was harmonious co-existence but the Group Areas Act then created additional division and social distance.

“The 1949 riots led to significant injuries and deaths on both sides and there were cases of rape. White people also got involved in transporting African men to attack Indian homes.

“The 1985 conflict started when the Security Police (officer) murdered the activist Victoria Mxenge. This was the start of an onslaught by the State and its local allies on many African areas.

“In the initial reaction, Indian business owners were forced out of areas like Inanda. Some civic leaders in Phoenix blamed the United Democratic Front for the attacks – this was manipulation by the apartheid government.”

“There have been many interactions that have continued these tensions. In recent years, the economic position of Indians has improved significantly, despite allegations that African people were being given preference over Indians in terms of BEE.

“In my view, the messages on social media that went out on the 12th of July knowingly instigated a reaction from African people whose sense of exclusion and marginalisation runs very deep.

“This translated into looting on a major scale, but there is very little evidence, if any, of people targeting others racially. Businesses were certainly targeted and naturally this would set up Indian business owners versus looters who were predominantly African in some areas, but it also set up looters versus business owners in all-African areas like Lamontville, which I know very well.”

Hemson is active on social media. “I had a lengthy and often very angry interchange on Facebook on the Phoenix issues, that illustrates how racialised the responses to the violence were from some people. There were these invocations of past trauma to explain and it seems to justify violent responses in the present.”