Efforts to probe king's speech frustrated

King Goodwill Zwelithini snubbed an investigation on the cause of last year’s xenophobic violence in the province.

Durban - King Goodwill Zwelithini snubbed an investigation commissioned by the provincial government and led by former UN high commissioner for human rights Judge Navi Pillay on the cause of last year’s xenophobic violence in the province.

Premier Senzo Mchunu commissioned Judge Pillay to lead a special reference group in probing the cause of the violence that led to the death of six people in KZN between March and May last year. Thousands of foreigners were forced out of their homes to transit camps. Their shops were looted and children were forced out of school.

When Mchunu released the report on the investigation in Durban yesterday, Judge Pillay said the special reference group’s repeated efforts to interview the king came to naught.

“We finally had a written response from the king’s secretary, who said that because the South African Human Rights Commission was investigating the issue of the king’s speech, he (the king) felt that he should not be interviewed by any other investigation,” she said.

Judge Pillay said the effort to meet the king had failed even after the Human Rights Commission had completed its investigation.

In a speech in Zulu given at a “moral regeneration” event in Pongola in March last year, King Zwelithini said when South Africans were in exile they did not settle in other countries and start trading.

“Instead, when you were in their countries you helped them to get their freedom. I know that other countries were liberated because of liberation armies from South Africa,” he was quoted as saying.

But now “when you walk in the street you cannot recognise a shop that you used to know because it has been taken over by foreigners, who then mess it up by hanging amanikiniki (spoilt goods)”, he said.

Although Judge Pillay said her group had failed even to obtain the king’s original speech, its investigation was based on the one that was translated into English by the media.

She said in her newly created document called the “Durban Declaration and Programme of Action” it was stated that some language used by locals and foreigners was hateful propaganda which spread harmful stereotypes.

“We found lots of this on both sides, locals against foreign nationals, foreign nationals using terms with regard to locals.”

The king’s adviser, Judge Jerome Ngwenya said the king was not aware Mchunu had commissioned Judge Pillay to do the investigation.

“However, the office of the king discovered that Pillay was conducting the same exercise” as the Human Rights Commission. What the king was going to tell the commission “would have been the same thing he would have said to Judge Pillay. He advised accordingly that he would be repeating himself”.

He said the ministry of police, which had organised the Pongola event, should have given Judge Pillay the original copy of the king’s speech.

bongani.hans@inl.co.za

The Mercury