AU urged to sanction South Africa over xenophobic attacks

The Reverend Dr Kwabena Opuni­Frimpong, a lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah

University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, urged the African Union (AU) to go beyond condemnation of xenophobic attacks in South Africa, and show leadership by sanctioning the country  .

“The AU must express a displeasure with some kind of admonition and sanction, “that this cannot continue, but if South Africa continues like this, then we will advise ourselves” he said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, on Friday.

According to Rev Opuni­Frimpong the AU needed to remind the country of its responsibility towards bilateral relations with other sister­countries, and needed to protect all people who lived and worked in South Africa.

He called on the Ghanaian government that plays a key role in the issues of Africa, to “put in a word” in the on­going attacks of other black nationals in South Africa as “it is getting serious”.

Rev Opuni­Frimpong also asked other African leaders to step in to help address the issue once and for all, and to halt the repressive attacks going on in Nigeria and other countries.

He  urged South African businesses in other countries to call for calm, and talked to their people to stop attacking other nationals in South Africa.

Rev Opuni­Frimpong expressed regret that over the years, South Africa had failed to deal with perpetrators, who looted, burnt and maimed other black nationals in the name of “foreigners taking our jobs”.

He said “We still must build the African family and so those who are using boycott and those who are using counter­attacks as a means of retaliation may also not be the best way, because we have agenda 2063 – the Africa we want.

“We want to open our economies, free-trade and all that. So if you are now going back to withdrawing, then we will be back to square one”.

 Rev Opuni­Frimpong stated that the Nigerian government’s intent to send a free flight to pick its citizens from South Africa would not make the case any better.

He said  “it will rather make it worse, because these are the leading economies in Africa­ Nigeria and South Africa, and if they go that way, it will divide the continent even the more. – GNA