CAPE TOWN -- The South African Congress of Trade Unions (Cosatu) believes a mix of issues sparked the xenophobic violence at De Doorns in the Western Cape which has left some 1 000 Zimbabwean migrant farm workers destitute and camped in a sports field.
Mike Louw, Cosatu educator and organiser in the Western Cape said at the weekend there was no shred of evidence to support the notion that grape farmers in the Hex Valley had been underpaying Zimbabweans nor was there concrete proof to the contrary.
People in the area had been living together for a while without any problem. There was another spark that raised this thing, he told The Zimbabwean on Sunday in an interview. Louws comments follow widespread media reports fanned by government that labour brokers and white commercial farmers between them had sowed seeds of mistrust between the migrants and local farm labourers.
There is no evidence or independent information that farmers were violating the law, also there is no evidence of compliance, he said. In the aftermath of the flare up, government officials alleged that farmers and labour brokers paid Zimbabwean farm workers R40, way below the official daily rate of R58. In contrast, most Zimbabweans claimed to earn between R60 and R90 a day.
Independent sources however backed the Zimbabwean farm workers charges that ANC officials in the area had deliberately ignited the evictions to boost their chances in forthcoming municipal elections.
Louw, who has been deeply involved in efforts to end hostilities between the belligerents, said it was regrettable that workers had set upon each other instead of pooling efforts to campaign for higher wages. There was a widespread perception among locals, he said, that Zimbabweans were getting preferential treatment in the allocation of electrified houses while South Africans were overlooked.
Investigations by this writer last month found that migrant farm workers in fact bought the government built RDP houses from locals who were not keen on dual home ownership. The prevailing view among locals themselves in-country migrants from the Eastern Cape was that owning a house in an urban setting was a waste of resources, preferring to return home to the rural homes at the end of their working lives.
Cosatu had in the interim plunged headlong into dealing with issues that affected workers in the De Doorns in general. In addition, the organisation had formed a partnership with PASSOP with a view to tackling issues exclusive to the migrant community. To bolster a permanent cessation of conflict in the wine lands, Cosatu wanted the Hex Valley Grape Farmers Association, the local municipality and the Department of Labour to marshal resources and collectively monitor the fragile ceasefire while educating locals on the need for co-existence with migrants.
Louws peace plan also entailed farmers agreeing to by-pass labour brokers and dealing directly with farm workers. A set of guidelines should be cobbled together to shore up the plan, he said.
The guidelines should operate in such as way that everybody is accommodated, he said. The local municipality must also develop a plan that provides services in an equal manner to staunch damaging suspicion.
Breeder Valley Municipality mayor Charles Ntsomi said plans to move the migrants back to their old homes were underway. This was being preceded by a community mobilisation and education programme aimed at softening attitudes among locals.
A stakeholders meeting has been planned for January 16 in the De Doorns after which clear policy would emerge, he said.
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