World May. 28, 2008 - 05:37AM JST ( 4 )

JOHANNESBURG —

South African President Thabo Mbeki came under fire Tuesday for traveling to Japan as anti-immigrant violence spread to a new province and aid groups struggled with thousands of displaced victims.

The petrol bombing of a Chinese-owned business in Eastern Cape province, which has largely escaped the xenophobic violence, undermined the confidence expressed by the government on Monday that the unrest had been contained.

Fifty-six people have been killed and tens of thousands left homeless, mainly around the economic capital Johannesburg, in two weeks of attacks.

Mbeki delivered a rare televised national address on Sunday where he lambasted the “shameful acts” which have sullied the reputation of a country which had styled itself as a “Rainbow Nation” since the end of the whites-only apartheid regime 14 years ago.

But most commentators said the president’s intervention was too little, too late, pointing out that Mbeki has still to visit any of the township areas where the violence broke out.

According to opposition leader Helen Zille, Mbeki had managed to compound the sense of remoteness by flying half-way round the world for a conference titled “Toward a Vibrant Africa: A Continent of Hope and Opportunity.”

“I have said the president should have been home, he should have had a hands on approach and he should have intervened much earlier with what is going on,” Zille, Democratic Alliance leader, said by phone from Cape Town.

Bantu Holomisa, president of the smaller United Democratic Movement opposition party, contrasted Mbeki’s response to the crisis to that of his predecessor, anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

“Mr Mandela would have the following day been to townships and addressed the people and gone to the people and addressed the nation,” Holomisa said.

“The nation has a right to say ‘we were longing for a voice from the highest office but it didn’t come when it needed it.’”

In his address on Sunday in which he referred to the “savagery” and “barbarity,” Mbeki tried to dispel the mounting criticism.

Newspapers said that Mbeki’s address had been a start, but had failed to address some of the underlying causes of the violence, including high unemployment.

Foreigners have been blamed for high levels of crime and a lack of employment opportunities in the country.

Up to three million Zimbabweans are now believed to be in South Africa having fled the economic meltdown in their homeland, and they are frequently accused of taking jobs from locals.

The Sowetan newspaper contrasted the response of large sectors of the public, who have donated food, blankets and clothing to those displaced by the violence, to the response of the stay-away Mbeki and his government.

“Shocked citizens have been pouring onto the streets to express their disgust and offer what comfort they can. But where are our leaders?” said the mass-selling daily.

As well as the thousands of mainly Zimbabwean and Mozambicans who have been camped out in police stations and community centers since the onset of the violence in the middle of May, many more have fled back to their homeland.

Nomfundo Mogapi, a program manager for the Johannesburg-based Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, said the number displaced was now approaching the six-figure mark.

“According to the different reports we collected, there are between 80,000 and 100,000 people who left their homes,” he said.

At least 30,000 had been forced out of their homes in Johannesburg, 20,000 in the Cape Town and a further 20,000 in the eastern coastal city of Durban.

The focus in the next few days was expected to turn on how to persuade those sheltering in the community centers to return back to their shacks, many of which were burned to the ground.

“It’s only a very few that are going back, because they are very afraid,” said Mogapi.

Thousands more have returned home, with Mozambique saying at the weekend that 20,000 of its nationals had fled the violence. The Red Cross said Monday it had prepared for the arrival of up to 20,000 Zimbabweans in Zambia.

The head of Mozambique’s immigration services, Orlando Cossa, told reporters on Tuesday that the rate of return had halved from a high of 3,000 per day last week as the intensity of the violence declines in South Africa.

“We have registered a general declining trend of people entering the country saying they are fleeing violence,” he said.

Wire reports