ethnic conflict – praag.org

Farm attack foiled by jamming gun

A gun pressed to his forehead, Hopewell farmer Mark Anthony looked into the cold eyes of the black man who was about to kill him, and then heard him pull the trigger.

He expected everything to fade to black, but realised he could still feel his heart racing, and the hooded man was still standing in front of him.

The man cocked the gun and pulled the trigger again, and again, but still nothing happened.

Yesterday morning Anthony’s partner said she was asleep when a voice told her to wake up at around 12.30.

“It was divine intervention. I knew I had to get up and I walked through to the lounge but I couldn’t see anything.

“I ran back to the room and told Mark he needed to wake up.”

Anthony switched the light on and walked through to the lounge and found one of the windows had been broken.

“I stuck my head through the hole in the window and saw a man lurking in the shadows, against the outside wall.

“I shouted at him but instead of running away, he ran straight at me.

“He pulled the glass from the window, climbed inside and pulled out a gun. He said: ‘I am going to shoot you’.

“He pulled the trigger twice and it didn’t go off. My heart was racing.”

Anthony said he had placed a spade behind the lounge door the previous day and decided to make a run for it.

“I grabbed the spade and just started swinging it at the man. He ran behind the table in the lounge and called to his partner outside.”

Outraged

Anthony said the partner jumped through the window and pulled out a firearm and began shooting at Anthony.

“He fired at me eight times. Not once did that gun discharge.”

Meanwhile, the woman had run outside and began screaming for help.

“I ran out the back door and screamed for help. I saw the neighbour’s lights switch on. That’s when I think the men ran away.

“If I hadn’t woken up, we both would have been dead. God protected and saved us.”

They said they were moving out as soon as possible.

“If Sarah hadn’t woken me up, Weekend Witness would not be here writing this story. They would have been writing my obituary,” said Anthony.

The couple said the Thornville police acted swiftly and placed great importance on the pair’s safety.

KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union (KwaNalu) security desk head Koos Marais said they were outraged that another farming family had been attacked, making it the 30th farm attack in KZN this year.

“We are grateful that no lives were lost and trust the police will do all in their power to bring those men to trial.”

He urged police to increase visible policing in all rural areas and encouraged people living in isolated areas to ensure their homes were secure.

Plessislaer SAPS spokesperson Captain Musa Ntombela said no arrests had been made and an investigation was under way.

Source: The Witness

Race war erupts as Coloureds refuse black teachers

“It’s a full-blown colour war.” This was all Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi could say to describe the crisis paralysing Roodepoort Primary School.

On Tuesday, the row over his appointment of Nomathemba Molefe as principal spilt over into a fist fight between angry parents from the mostly coloured community and a black official from the Gauteng Department of Education.

On Monday, Lesufi had vowed to close down the school permanently if teachers continued to be threatened with violence by parents.

Black teachers have stayed away from school for a week, unprepared to subject themselves to either the intimidation or the risk to their lives. The school has already been shut down twice.

Given an ultimatum to return on Tuesday morning, they didn’t.

Angry parents thronged the reception area, swearing and cursing at the staff. They were incensed at being accused of arson attacks at the school, including a recent petrol bombing of the deputy principal’s car and firebombing the offices of the principal and her deputy.

“We won’t burn the school down, we built it ourselves,” the enraged group shouted at the official.

Black teachers have refused to report for duty for fear of being assaulted by members of the local coloured community.

Source: IOL

Violence in Baltimore spikes

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called the Baltimore’s recent spike in violence “disheartening” Thursday as police work to address a dramatic increase in homicides and nonfatal shootings in the black American city.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” the mayor told reporters at a news conference. “It is disheartening, but I am still resolved to continue to reduce violent crime in our city.”

Rawlings-Blake said the city’s faced spikes in crimes in the past and police have been able to successfully reverse them. She said she’s “confident” police will do so again.

The city has experienced 100 homicides this year, compared with 71 at this time last year, the police department said. It’s the fastest the city has reached 100 homicides since 2007. Last year, the city reached the mark on July 4. Nonfatal shootings are up more than 70 percent with at least 19 people shot on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Baltimore has raised a less-examined racial divide than the obvious one between black and white America. Not only in Los Angeles and Baltimore, but in Ferguson and other cities caught up in racially charged confrontations, Asian-American shopkeepers, including Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, and Arab Americans as well as Koreans, appear to have been the victims of racial profiling.

The New York Times reported April 27 that gang members in Baltimore had specifically “stood in front of stores that they knew were black-owned businesses to protect them from looting and vandalism,” pointing the rioters instead “toward Chinese- and Arab-owned stores.”

The Korea Times reported April 30, quoting the Korean-American Grocers Association International and the Korean Society of Maryland, that at least 40 Korean-owned businesses in Baltimore were damaged in the riots. One Korean-American-owned business, Fireside North lounge and liquor store, was set on fire, with its owner and the owner of another business, Uptown Liquor, reportedly sustaining injuries.

The Associated Press stated that a total of 200 small businesses, many owned by Asian-Americans, were shut down as a result of damage caused by rioters.

Baltimore’s WBAL News reported the same day that “42 Korean grocers, delis, and carry-outs” had been “destroyed or damaged during the unrest,” with the total number still being tallied. The television station also noted that the Korean consulate and the Korean-American wife of Maryland governor Larry Hogan subsequently held meetings with some business owners to discuss reconstruction.

Source: Baltimore Sun/ The Weekly Standard

Police must stop violence between SA blacks and Somalians: ANC

The police must stop the violence between South Africans and Somalians living in Port Elizabeth, the ANC in the Eastern Cape said on Monday.

“Any type of violence, including looting of shops owned by Somali nationals is illegal, wrong and has no place in South Africa,” African National Congress provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said in a statement.

“The SA Police Service members are the first and last line of defence for our communities, and we call on them to use the law and public order policing techniques to stop this wave of violence.”

Eastern Cape police said seven men had been arrested at the weekend for looting and burning Somali-owned shops in Port Elizabeth.

At least 10 shops in KwaZakhele and New Brighton were attacked.

Brigadier Miranda Mills said two shops were looted and burnt in Ntintili street, and a car parked outside was set alight.

Several other shops were targeted on Sunday following the arrest of a Somali man accused of shooting dead a man outside a shop on Saturday evening.

Police had since moved some foreigners out of the area.

Mabuyane said the ANC in the province was calling on residents in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro to refrain from taking the law into their own hands.

“Somali nationals must also stop using violence to resolve challenges they face but must put their trust in the police to deal with any challenge.

“Violence will not help us deal with any situation but will make matters worse for our people,” he said. – Sapa