West Cape News
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| Local business owners in Khayelitsha marched to the Harare police station on Tuesday to query why Somali-owned shops in the area had been allowed to reopen after they had enforced a 2008 agreement that no new Somali shops would open following the xenophobic attacks that year. Photo: Nombulelo Damba/WCN |
About 50 Khayelitsha local business owners marched to Harare police station on Tuesday demanding to know why Somali shops they had told to close by Friday last week, had been allowed to re-open.
The march followed the forced closure of eight Somali shops in Harare on Friday and over the weekend, two of which were looted on Wednesday when the initial warning to close was delivered by a group of business owners.
The business owners cited an agreement written up in the aftermath of the 2008 xenophobic attacks that no new Somali-owned shops should be allowed to open in Khayelitsha.
However, on Monday the Somali business owners were given the go-ahead to re-open by ward 98 councillor Anele Gabuza, supported by the police.
The protesting business owners accused the police of taking bribes from Somali traders. Carrying a small white coffin, the protesters said bribery and corruption in their community must 'rest in peace'.
Protesting businessmen said Somalis were not permitted to operate in the area but police were doing nothing about it.
The march was preceded by a two hour meeting in Lingelethu Hall between protesting business owners, the Lingelethu SAPS, a ward councillor representative and SANCO members.
Only one Somali trader was present. Police were asked to close a new Somali shop that had just opened in the area.
SAPS Community Crisis committee chairperson Mfundisi Mbekwa said the local businessmen only wanted to close Somali shops that had opened since 2008 when an agreement that no new Somali shops should open was reached between the Somali Retailers Association and the Zanokhanyo Retailers Association.
Lingelethu Station Commander Richard Koopman said that the problem was that the 2008 agreement was monitored by the police.
"The community must blame themselves for this because they are giving Somalis the space to rent. This agreement needs to be re-signed so that it will work for the community as a whole and more than one Somali should also be present at the meeting," he said.
Representative for the ward councillor, Bathandwa Spakisi, agreed with Koopman and said the entire community needed to be involved in the decision making process.
"Local business people must have a meeting with the community and draw up an agreement that nobody is going to violate," he said.
The protester eventually left the police station and disperesed after Colonel Achmat Adams instructed the police to allow all Somali-owned shops in Harare to reopen despite local business owners' opposition to it.
Adams said local business owners had no right to threaten Somali traders and should it happen again, the law would take its course.
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