by Li Jianmin

    JOHANNESBURG, May 23 (Xinhua) -- As attacks on foreigners spread beyond Gauteng, South African President Thabo Mbeki has approved the deployment of the defense force to help police stop the violence.

    The president said troops were deployed in Gauteng where at least 42 people have died, thousands have been injured, more than 16,000 displaced and 400 arrested since violence began in Alexandra township more than a week ago.

    The violence has spread across the province and incidents were reported in a number of neighboring places including Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, where businesses belonging to foreigners were looted.

    Hundreds of foreigners living in Muvhango settlement, near Bophelong, were attacked and sought refuge at the local police station.

    Police in Mpumalanga said shack burning and looting targeting foreigners went on there for several days and in KwaZulu-Natal, police were monitoring Durban's Daloton Road area after an attack on a Nigerian-owned tavern on Tuesday night.

    In Mpumalanga, about 200 foreigners sought refuge at Leslie police station after the shops were looted there and in Embalenhletownship "even now the situation has not stabilized."

    South African National Defense Force spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi said the military were deployed after the defense forces had met generals to discuss the details.

    The deployment of the army comes after calls were made by several organizations, including the Human Rights Commission and the Democratic Alliance, for the military to help the police to quell the unrest in Gauteng.

    Mkhwanazi said troops were on standby to be deployed in Gauteng, though there were reports of similar attacks in other provinces on Thursday.

    Hangwana Mulaudzi, safety and security ministry spokesman, said the military would provide "back-up" assistance to police during operations in hot spots such as Ekurhuleni.

    He said the army would provide security to the police during raids. Mkhwanazi said it was common for the army to assist police in different types of operations, including road blocks.

    Army resources such as field kitchens, tents, mobile toilets, beds and blankets have also been used to ease the humanitarian crisis of cold and hungry victims sheltering in police stations, churches and community halls.

    United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the violence reflected growing global tensions.

    "The underlying factor is basically poverty," he said. "We are witnessing an increase in the number and intensity of crisis that generate displacement around the world. We are very worried."

    About 9,000 Mozambican nationals fleeing the violence in Gauteng have crossed the border back to their homeland, immigration officials said.

    Police made a breakthrough on Thursday when they arrested four community leaders in Germiston for inciting the community to violence during the recent spate of violent attacks, police said.

    They were arrested in Dukathole informal settlement and would appear in court on several charges, including murder, robbery, theft, incitement and public violence.

    The violence cases are directed against black foreigners, mostly from Zimbabwe but also from Mozambique and Malawi, on the pretext that these foreigners commit violent crime and take jobs meant for South Africans.

    Explanations for the violence have ranged from hatred of foreigners to vague allegations of a third force, but the most commonly accepted theory is fury by the very poor over a lack of service delivery.

    Some commentators said xenophobia was a symptom rather than the underlying cause. South African political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki said "treating the symptoms won't treat the underlying malaise."

    He said he regarded the underlying problem as the extreme and widespread poverty in South Africa, accompanied by homelessness and landlessness, and the lack of any way out of this.

    He felt that the violence could continue in different forms, possibly during the run-up to next year's general elections.

    South African Lawyers for Human Rights director Jacob van Garderen said stopping the violence and providing humanitarian relief are needed immediately, but changes to immigration laws and faster immigrant documentation are needed in the long term.

    Fuller, project manager at the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, analyzed that xenophobia is not unique to South Africa -- discrimination against foreigners takes place in many societies, in particular those experiencing political or economic upheaval.

    He said it is a convenient scapegoating of those at the margins of society for the ills being experienced. Its draw card is that while it is often informed by misguided perceptions, it is rooted in people's realities -- that of increased hardship.

    He held that the recent spate of violence is clearly linked to South Africa's worsening economic situation. Increasing prices of every day essentials such as food, fuel and electricity, and rising unemployment are leading to a politics of scarcity amongst those hardest hit. This has likely been made worse by the numbers -- or perception of numbers -- of Zimbabweans entering South Africa.

    Disadvantaged groups perceive their share of resources reducing in proportion to the number of foreigners entering the country. The targeting of African foreigners is a product of proximity -- they reside in areas where both poverty and frustration with a lack of government response to the economic situation is at its highest among South Africans, he said.

    They are also those individuals who take jobs that are at the lowest end of the pay scale, placing them in direct competition with the large numbers of unemployed.

    Discrimination is fuelled by uncertainty, and there is general confusion over the status of foreigners in South Africa. Whether documented or undocumented, legal or illegal, refugees, migrants, immigrants or asylum seekers, foreigners are often lumped together as "illegal aliens."

    This facilitates xenophobic attitudes and encourages hostility, conflict and violence. The racist undercurrents of xenophobia are vividly demonstrated by the numerous instances of South African citizens being wrongfully detained by police for being "too black."

    Valji, the center's senior project manager, said that as the economic situation worsens, violence against foreigners is likely to continue.

    What is needed urgently is clear and coordinated action to stop the violence in the short term and serious efforts at mediating the situation. In the long term, only education of those who resort to such actions can address the context that has allowed the current violence to proliferate.

    Kadalie, a South African human rights activist, said that "victim" psychology also finds expression in the violent attacks. Alexandra is now a cauldron of hate against those who seek refuge in South Africa and who cross the borders illegally, because those who do not have will blame those who seem to be a burden on the already scarce resources of the state.

    They see rising unemployment, the housing crisis and dire poverty as direct threats to their survival and retaliate against those closest to them, but who are considered "other."

    She said if this entire society is to be healed from years of racial discrimination, the government, political parties and civic organizations should take the lead in minimizing the kind of conflict that arises in situations of dire poverty, uncontrolled immigration and competition for scarce resources, such as jobs and housing.