SA Migration International

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South Africa: ANC`s anti-immigrant measures impact tourism

Source: G. T. Maqhubela - wsws.org, 13/07/2015

Tourist arrivals into South Africa from abroad have plummeted amid the
African National Congress (ANC) government`s enforcement of xenophobic
anti-immigrant policies
Russian arrivals fell 46.5 percent in the first quarter of this year,
according to the Southern African Tourism Services Association
(SATSA), the worst figure yet in what has been a general decline.
This follows drops in arrivals from China and India, countries whose
tourist traffic to South Africa fell 37.9 percent and 15 percent
respectively. According to SATSA CEO David Frost, "This is in stark
contrast to the 235 percent increase… [in arrivals] from China
achieved between 2009 and 2013."
In May, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba announced that among plans
to tighten up on illegal migration was the expansion of the
immigration inspectorate to monitor businesses employing undocumented
migrants.
Earlier this year the Department of Home Affairs began enforcing
stringent visa guidelines requiring foreign tourists to apply in
person at South African consulates. Gigaba said during a visit to
India on July 9 that while he expected the visa rules to hurt tourism
in the first year, they would not affect the sector in the long run.
A Grant Thornton study for the Tourism Business Council of South
Africa notes that 886 million rand in direct spending was lost last
year, amid controversy and uncertainty over the new regulations. Grant
Thornton estimates that 100,000 tourist arrivals will be lost this
year alone.
In June, Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom, in opposition to his cabinet
colleague Gigaba, told MPs that a survey would be used to assess the
scale of the devastation to tourism. Some 21,000 jobs in the sector
are at risk while 270,000 prospective tourists could be lost as a
result of what Hanekom called the "unintended consequences" of the
onerous travel regulations.
From June 1, new immigration rules require that the original
unabridged birth certificates (including details of both parents) of
children prospectively travelling into or out of South Africa, be
presented at points of exit and entry. Immigrants with expired
residence or work permits must return to their countries of origin to
apply for renewals or extensions.
The new rules were passed in the context of the ANC government`s
xenophobic campaign against foreign nationals. Various ruling-party
mouthpieces claim the regulations are aimed at combating terrorism and
human trafficking, but even foreigners legally living and working in
South Africa have come under scrutiny.
The Institute for Security Studies says the obligations placed on
unskilled as well as skilled migrants seeking to live in South Africa
are extremely burdensome. For the ISS, this indicates that a "policy
decision and political will" are behind the hurdles placed before
migrants.
The South African education system is notoriously poor at producing
graduates with the skills most in demand. This is a factor which
attracts well-educated foreigners from overseas, as well as those from
the rest of Africa, into the country. Yet the ANC government
invariably scapegoats foreigners, in particular placing blaming on
them for South Africa`s high unemployment rate.
After an outbreak of xenophobic anti-immigrant violence earlier this
year the government launched Operation Fiela (Clean Sweep).
This involved the deployment of the army into areas affected by
violence and looting. According to the Daily Maverick the army
undertook sweeps "in all nine provinces with 343 operations conducted
in 99 cities, towns or townships, with 9,098 arrests."
The online newspaper quotes the spokesperson of the inter-ministerial
committee on migration, Phumla Williams, saying Operation Fiela will
continue until March 31, 2016.
Reporting on the anti-immigrant military deployment, Business Day
commented, "It is now clear that the operation is more about targeting
than protecting foreigners and harassing protesters deemed to be
dissidents by the state. The arbitrary detentions are patently unlawful."
Ultimately the ANC government is utilizing xenophobic violence to
prepare for a social explosion which is the inevitable outcome of its
pro-capitalist, anti-poor policies over 20 years since the start of
multiracial democracy.
Having overseen the increase of socioeconomic inequality to a level
not seen even during white-minority Apartheid rule, the ANC now serves
the ruling elite in the same role previously played by Afrikaner
nationalists—as a bulwark against a working-class uprising.
The extension of Operation Fiela is geared towards intimidating the
working class as a whole. Today the military targets foreigners inside
and outside the country; tomorrow they will target the unemployed and
the working poor.
While dismantling race laws, the intolerable face of capitalist
domination, South African elites left unchallenged the wealth
accumulated by the white elite under Apartheid. This filthy lucre was
protected, with the capitalist legal framework left intact on the
understanding that the black nationalist elite be allowed a minority
stake in the imperialist exploitation of local labour, in which South
African capitalists have traditionally served as overseers for the
major foreign powers.
This arrangement is now splitting at the seams under the impetus of
globalisation, trade liberalisation, competition from China and other
cheap-labour platforms, as well as the still-unfolding credit crunch
which began in 2008.
The global plutocrats, including the ANC, have no answer to the crisis
of capitalism except the increased brutality by which they seek to
extract from workers the losses from their financial speculation and
parasitism.

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