SOUTH AFRICA’S XENOPHOBIA WAS [ALREADY] REPORTED TO THE ICC IN 2020.

South Africa in the ICC for xenophobic murders of over 200 Zimbabwean truck drivers.

In 2020, Advocate Simba Chitando, a director of ZASM, opened a case against the South African government and some individuals in the ICC (International Court of Justice) for the xenophobic murders of over 200 truck drivers over a period of 2 years.

The South African government was cited in the case as the Ministers of Labor, Police and the National Police Commissioner, for inaction, dereliction and discrimination of murdered foreign drivers between 2018 and now.

This case essentially means that charges of xenophobia have already been registered in the ICC against South Africa for the systematic murders of over 200 Zimbabwean truck drivers and perceived discrimination and inaction of the government to these crimes.

The ICC in turn responded by saying that they would be monitoring the situation in the country, to determine whether to prosecute the government, officials or individuals for these crimes.

With that, they asked the advocate to continue updating them on cases of xenophobia -more fittingly Afrophobia- and hate crimes in that country.

Since then, Simba Chitando has kept the criminal court updated on developments pertaining to xenophobia in South Africa. He also periodically reports on the actions taken by the government of South Africa to remedy these crimes.

In so doing, the court is well appraised on the current xenophobic trends in that country, those behind the instigation, the claims of political involvement and the response of the South African government.

If xenophobia continues unabated in that country, those instigating such violence and bigotry upon fellow Africans, will find themselves facing action from the international court and international community as we saw with apartheid.

This initiative by Advocate Chitando must be aplauded, because it is through similar action that apartheid was declared a crime against humanity for the UN and international community to take action against the apartheid regime for discrimination and other crimes of bigotry.

What I find disturbing however, is even though a liberated South Africa is being dragged through international criminal courts for hate crimes similar to apartheid; the racist and criminal South African media, has smothered this story as they did with illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.

We believe that this has been deliberately done as a means to encourage the continuation of hate crimes against black foreigners.

It’s clearly an agenda by these racists who control the media, to hide black on black apartheid, in order to establish the ANC government as a pariah government in the ilk of the apartheid government.

Axiomatically, such a designation of the ANC government would be disastrous for African unity, free continental trade and progress; particularly now that the ANC is going to face more pressure to transform and address apartheid inequalities in a manner that might see them face similar western reprisals that Zimbabwe is facing for land reform and transformation, in the near future.

By Rutendo Bereza Matinyarare, brand strategist at Frontline Strat Marketing and founder of ZASM and ZUAUWS anti-sanctions movements.