Madam Speaker, not for the first time, when South Africans face national crises of mounting proportions, they are left rudderless by government where the only approach of dealing with situations is to deny their very existence. On Monday this week, when the death toll in Alexandra and Diepsloot stood at 12 people and the number who had been displaced from their homes were within hundreds, I called on the Minister of Home Affairs to stop the circumventing the matter by making cloak-and-dagger references to a third force and to get the root cause of the problem by acknowledging the xenophobia-fuelled attacks for what they are. On Tuesday, when the number of dead had almost doubled to 22 and the number of immigrants injured and displaced in the escalating violence had reached thousands, I urged government once again to recognise this crisis for what it is so as to begin to formulate workable solutions to the stalemate. Today's report indicates that 42 people have died so far in a catastrophe that threatens to take on even greater dimensions as the violence spreads to other parts of the country.
What has our government's response been? We have a President who has given the go-ahead for an extremely delicate though very necessary military intervention and left the country in his customary absentee leadership style. And, more importantly, we have a Minister in the Presidency who now asks us to meditate on his theory that these attacks are in fact the work of "Right-wing populous groups who have mobilised" "the lumpen proletariat against society's minority groups". How much longer must South Africa be left at the mercy of a government in denial, incapable of offering credible decisive leadership when it is most needed? I thank you.