Jean-Jacques Cornish

Xenophobic attacks in Limpopo

Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have moved to the northeastern province of Limpopo.

Foreigners on the outskirts of the provincial capital Polokwane in Limpopo have abandoned their shops after protesting villagers threatened to burn them alive and then looted them.

Violence erupted in the Ga-Sekgopo area after a foreign shop owner was found in possession of a mobile phone belonging to a local man who was killed three weeks ago.

Villagers demanded answers on how the shop owner got the man’s phone.

Police said one of the alleged killers took the phone to the foreigner. They didn’t know whether it was sold to him or was brought there to be fixed.

Violent protests erupted on Sunday with villagers sending all the foreigners packing and pushing them out of 11 villages in Sekgopo.

One of the shop owners says he’s lost his stock and won’t regain the profit lost during the looting.

Other owners are worried that they’re being made to pay for the sins of their fellow foreign nationals.

Police spokesperson Moatshe Ngoepe says police are patrolling the area.

In Soweto residents are expressing frustration at the effects of having threatened foreign shop owners evacuated after xenophobic attacks last month.

They say they have to walk further to do their shopping and prices in local stores are higher than the foreign owners were charging.

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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.

Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.

Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.

Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.

He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.

He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.

He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.

In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.

He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.

Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.