Minister Cele provokes citizen vigilantism in relation to both undocumented and undocumented targeted persons

Minister Bheki Celeb has beefed up the list of senior public officials in South Africa who, in a space of two weeks, have sloganeered anti foreigners statements.

On his address, he said, “You have to find all those that are illegal in the country, ship them out, make sure that Home Affairs help us and those that have been mentioned by the community that they are doing these things, even if they are legal, but if they sell drugs to our kids, if they open drug deals, if they open brothels, it doesn’t matter whether they are legal, they don’t belong here because they don’t belong here because these are our children”

In his blunt statement, he implored Home Affairs to find all the illegal immigrants without expressing the manner in which the search would be conducted.

This statement on the streets would be misconstrued by the vigilantes as a signal for them to unleash xenophobic attacks on fellow Africans on the basis of documentation as if a human being absent documentation does not deserve dignity as ushered by the Constitution of South Africa.

Should Home Affairs bank on the community on the truth or should the courts be the platform where documented and undocumented persons are tested?

Should it be a default that the foreigners are faces of everything and anything illegal in South Africa that the whole Minister can address a gathering in confirmation?

Who is a South African and who should be protected by the constitution if not all those who live in it?

It is important to have a crime free South Africa, but it is inhuman to confine criminality to people of foreign heritage without having such stance reached by an impartial and independent tribunal.

This latest video of Minister Cele came after Dr Ramathuba and Him. Gwede Mantashe in their separate averments indicated that South Africa was not a home for foreigners.

Also the President of the Republic of South Africa has come on twitter in support of Dr. Ramathuba’s position making the future of Africans from other African countries, both documented and document hazy and bleak as absence of safety lingers on them all day and night.