A bloody racist massacre!

PHOENIX, the scene of what all facts point to as a racially motivated massacre of scores of African people by their neighbours of Indian descent, is a hidden microcosm of the new South Africa’s hidden socio-economic inequalities that have flourished side-by-side with class discrimination since the dawn of democracy in 1994.

This week, reports that the Phoenix mortuary had at least 500 bodies of people of African descent, who were targeted and maimed, brutally killed and their bodies discarded like carcasses, were quickly refuted by KwaZulu-Natal health authorities. They said only 128 bodies were there, and not all were casualties of the unrest.

What difference does the number make, really? None, because at the heart of the massacre that took place in Phoenix during the recent social unrest, characterised by wanton looting and destruction of particularly commercial properties in KZN and Gauteng, were deep-seated racial prejudices that reared their ugly heads amid bellowing smoke from the burning buildings.

But what we find utterly inexplicable is the apparent reluctance by our democratically-elected government to call the Phoenix massacre what it is: A bloody racist massacre, period!

No amount of fancy footwork will succeed in duping the public to believe the government’s lame narrative of simply an unfortunate tragedy in Phoenix.

Instead of throwing the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of the SA Human Rights Commission to conduct a nationwide investigation and dialogues among communities about what could have sparked the recent socio-political upheavals, the government should supplement SAPS’ committee of 10 detectives who we are told are conducting some investigations in Phoenix post-massacre.

Experts, criminologists, social scientists, women, youth and children’s groups, among others, should be a part of the government’s allencompassing endeavour to dig to the root cause of the recent Phoenix saga.

Instead, our government appears to cloud the Phoenix sub-theme in the recent chaotic scenes to the overall national picture of their so-called “attempted insurrection”. That’s disingenuous.

Right now, many affected families are scared to even visit the local Phoenix mortuary to go and identify their missing loved ones on their own. They require police escorts to do so.

Such is the depth of the simmering raciallymotivated mistrust and tension that can be cut with a knife across Phoenix. Victims from the nearby black township of Zwelisha were gunned down, others mowed down with instruments that include machetes, knives and pangas.

Indeed, what started as the Release Zuma protests spiralled into something never seen in SA for donkey’s years.

However, to ensure that it never happens again, it is our considered view that our government ought to play open book with society. We all need to learn lessons from whatever was behind the Phoenix massacre.

This is no time to play politics. Lives, too many lives for that matter, were lost during a night(s) of terror in Phoenix. Those responsible – and we believe there are many – are known within the Phoenix community and yet they are still home and roaming the streets instead of being hunted down and thrown behind bars.

Instead, the SANDF and the SAPS appear to have been unleashed only on the communities suspected of looting, retrieving furniture and groceries whilst no attention is seemingly being paid to the Phoenix murderers.

Such ineptitude on the part of authorities is regrettable in the extreme. South Africa, nay, Phoenix, deserves better. We dare not fail the people of Phoenix, particularly those whose lives were cut short by unscrupulous vigilante groups.