World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca appealed for an immediate end to indiscriminate attacks with an escalating impact on civilians in Ukraine.
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Author: Staff Writer
At the conclusion of the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis recalled that the faithful had just prayed to the Virgin Mary, as the city that bears her name, Mariupol, has “become a city of martyrs in the terrible war ravaging Ukraine.”
The Pope expressed horror over the barbarity of the killing of children, innocents and unarmed civilians, and called for an end to the unacceptable armed aggression, before it reduces cities to cemeteries.
“With pain in my heart, I join my voice to that of the common people, who implore an end to the war,” he said.
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SACC visits St. George’s Cathedral
The South African Council of Churches (SACC) shared some SACC Executives, staff and presidium yesterday at St. George’s Cathedral, where Archbishop Tutu is interred.
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A Russian air raid struck a children’s hospital on the southern port city of Mariupol on Wednesday, killing at least three people, including a child.
The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, criticized attacks on hospitals, in response to a reporter’s question at a conference in Rome on Wednesday evening.
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President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa has been approached to play a “mediation role” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The President had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday afternoon.
According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, at least 2.3 million Ukrainians have been forced to flee their country since a violent invasion by Russia commenced two weeks ago, with hundreds of civilians and military officials left dead by the military offensive.
“I outlined our position on the conflict that has unfolded, as well as our belief that the conflict should be resolved through mediation and negotiation between the parties and – if need be – with the help of agencies that can help bring a solution to the conflict.
“President Putin appreciated our balanced approach. We believe this position enables both parties to subject the conflict to mediation and negotiation. Based on our relations with the Russian Federation and as member of BRICS, South Africa has been approached to play a mediation role,” President Ramaphosa said.
In a statement, the Russian government said the Presidents will keep communication lines open between the two countries.
“At the request of [President] Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of Russia spoke about the reasons for and goals of the special military operation to protect Donbass.
“He also informed the South African leader about the situation regarding talks with representatives of the Ukrainian authorities. The President of South Africa supported the ongoing political and diplomatic efforts,” the statement said.
Photo: Kremlin
Eskom Chief Operations Officer Jan Oberholzer says Stage 4 load shedding will give the power utility enough space to build up fast-depleting emergency reserves and avoid the risk of implementing Stage 6 load shedding.
Stage 4 load shedding was implemented on Wednesday morning following a barrage of breakdowns, shutdowns and trips at power stations across the country. This includes the loss of about seven units in one night, which left the power system under severe pressure.
“We again do apologise for the difficult situation we are placing the people of South Africa in and the negative impact to the economy. However…in order to protect and ensure the integrity of the electrical system, proactive implementation of load shedding is required,” Oberholzer said.
Compounding Eskom’s challenges are the 16 generating units, which Oberholzer said are currently “running at risk” – putting a further 5800MW of power at low to high risk.
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The rising oil price, the potential weakening of the rand against the United States dollar, and supply constraints around wheat, pose upside risks to food and headline inflation.
This is according Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana who noted that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine carries with it significant risks for a world economy that is yet to fully recover from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The longer the conflict lasts as well as the imposition of further sanctions could lead to widespread global inflation and impede global economic recovery,” Godongwana said on Wednesday.
He made these remarks in Parliament during the debate on the 2022 Fiscal Framework and Revenue Proposals.
“On the positive side, we expect that the rally in export commodity prices, stemming from supply concerns brought about by the conflict, will provide added support to the local mining sector and a possible windfall to revenue collections,” the Minister said.
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Tensions are brewing between groups of South Africans and foreign nationals.
The South African Council of Churches believes the country needs to have a conversation about the issue and it’s hosting a national indaba on the matter.
Reverend Malusi Mpumlwana General Secretary of the South African Council Of Churches spoke with eNCA’s Tumelo Mothotoane about the initiative.
Watch the interview below:
Photo: Twitter
According to an article published by The Conversation, it’s commonly held that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s objective for invading Ukraine is to install a puppet regime that is pliable to Moscow’s interests. If so, this would be consistent with the approach Russia has taken with its forays into Africa in recent years.
Drawing from its Syria playbook, Russia has propped up proxies in Libya, Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan. Moscow also has its sights on another half dozen African leaders facing varying degrees of vulnerability.
In the process, African citizen and sovereign interests have given way to Russian priorities.
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Photo: Flickr / GCIS
In January 2022, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) made a call for the establishment of a national dialogue on ‘foreign nationals’ working in South Africa, following the utterances from members of society for the removal of all ‘foreign nationals’ from South Africa ‘with immediate effect’.
Since then, the SACC has been working on how to develop and manage a platform for dialogue; and following consultations with various stakeholders, today we would like to officially launch the process of the National Indaba on Non-South African Persons in our Society and Economy.
From the outset, let us clarify the use of the term ‘foreign nationals’. This term is a contradiction, as Prof. Cheryl Hendricks of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation has pointed out, for people cannot be both foreign and nationals in a country. Therefore, the SACC refers to non-South Africans.
The foundation of our work in developing the approach for this platform has been to seek a full understanding of the challenge as it presents itself, and additionally interrogating the factors contributing to this challenge.
We have identified that a major contributor to this is the depth of poverty gnawing at the life opportunities of what the SACC refers to as the Excluded Majority, South Africans who are historically outside of the main fabric of the economy.
The Excluded Majority are largely located in the poor communities of our country, where there is much contestation for livelihood opportunities between poor South Africans and non-South African persons.
It is in these our communities populated by the Excluded Majority that the murmurings about non-South Africans ‘stealing the jobs’ earmarked for South Africans have been swelling in mass for years. It is also in these communities where we’ve seen brutal acts of violence against non-South Africans. We think of Isaac Sithole, who was burned alive in 2019 in Katlehong; we think of Emmanuel Sithole who was stabbed to death at Alexandra in 2015. We think of the deadly standoff between non-South Africans and local South Africans at Gqebera in October last year. Many may yet meet their deaths in such conflicts.
It is one manifestation of what the SACC terms the failure of democratic South Africa to achieve the Promise of the Post-Apartheid South Africa. The failure to achieve this makes for the growth of a scarcity mentality that grips poor communities in the absence of hope.
It must be noted, however, that the campaigns against non-South Africans are not confined to the poor communities, as they also reach to the professionals and other middle-class environments, as has begun in the case of foreign doctors.
Our priority today is to announce the creation of a national process towards a stable national environment where the growing lawlessness over non-South Africans can be addressed before it spills into the broader decline of the rule of law, through what may seem like “justifiable” acts of public frustration.
This National Indaba serves to bring all interested parties to one process of engagement, in an organised and structured manner, with the intention of finding lasting solutions to the tensions over non-South African persons in our society and economy.
To kick-start this National Indaba process, we invite all interested parties who are impacted and affected in this matter, to submit their proposals in writing to [email protected] at the SACC for the attention of the Secretariat of the National Indaba on Non-South African Persons in our Society and Economy, which serves under the guidance of Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana.
Our request is that these public submissions must be solution-focused, aimed at presenting their recommendations for how these challenges should be resolved in the short and long-term. This includes all those individuals who may have previously used different channels to share their thinking; we invite them to re-submit their thoughts through this formal process.
We would appeal that these submissions be made on or by: 31 March 2022.
During the weeks ahead in March, these submissions will be analysed, processed and collated, and where greater clarity is needed, the authors of these proposals may be engaged by the Secretariat to clarify their proposals, for better understanding of their issues.
Looking ahead into April and May, a series of direct conversations will be conducted with some of the parties that have made these submissions; and the categorisation of their submissions will inform the series of cluster engagements that will be held with the various categories of people and organisations that have submitted their positions.
Special engagement sessions will also be conducted with various organisations such as community based organisations that may be relevant; labour and employer organisations; small business and vendor organisations; organised organisations of non-South Africans; as well various government departments.
Throughout this process, a research unit will focus on gathering relevant information and verifying claims made in the various submissions.
Research will also be initiated regarding the viability or feasibility of proposed solutions, for the benefit of the dialogue process.
These engagement sessions will culminate in a broad forum of representatives of the participating and interested parties, where a presentation of the body of views will be made for a solutions dialogue.
This forum has been earmarked for 21-23 June 2022.
We are cognisant of the fact that our efforts will require multi-stakeholder support and we are open to receiving this support in its various forms from both public and private sponsors, who are welcome to contact the National Indaba Secretariat in this regard.
Finally, we understand that this National Indaba process must be accompanied by an acceleration of other nation-building ingredients that include far-reaching economic transformation, because without the broader agenda that satisfies the deeper needs of the people, any dialogue will soon lose steam as an idle talk-shop. For this reason, the SACC has started the Initiative for Economic Transformation for the
Excluded Majority, with a panel of a dozen economists and thinkers working to investigate options for an economic architecture that best includes the Excluded Majority in the current urgent need for economic transformation for inclusive growth; and to wrestle with the question of what are the sectors of the economy that have the greatest potential to draw into productive participation the largest number of excluded people in the shortest period of time. The third necessary initiative to be rolled out soon is the Nation-Building Initiative of Healing & Reconciliation for a Common Identity – the “One Identity South Africa” campaign.
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