Vusi B. Koloane, minister plenipotentiary of South Africa in
China, said on Monday that his government will do everything
possible to "completely eliminate" crimes.
Koloane said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua that
there was "no organized effort" against Chinese nationals in South
Africa.
"We want a crime-free South Africa," he said. "We want to have
zero crimes so that every person, irrespective of his nationality,
working in South Africa will feel safe and be protected by the law
and by the citizens."
China has made representations to South Africa over a series of
crimes and murders of Chinese citizens there and has urged its
nationals to step up their vigilance in the country.
Armed robbers in South Africa have shot dead four Chinese people
since this year, with the events making front-page news of many
papers in China.
"We fully express our sadness, sympathy and condolences to the
families of those Chinese nationals killed in South Africa. We
equally express our condolences to the Chinese government because
its nationals were killed in South Africa."
"We apologize and ensure the Chinese people that our government
is investigating every single case," he said.
According to the Chinese embassy in South Africa, one recent
case has been cracked by South African police with a suspect
arrested.
Manqoba Nyembezi, tourism attaché of South African embassy in
China, also told Xinhua that there has been "significant progress"
in the case of Hong Kong businessman killed on January 10 by two
people who have been arrested and are waiting for trial.
Speaking of the impact that these incidents would have on
exchanges of various kinds between the two countries, Koloane said
that the latest incidents would have some negative impact, but the
impact would be fairly small in the long run.
According to Nyembezi, South Africa issued more than 2,000 visas
to Chinese nationals in the first 15 days of this year.
Media reports said that South Africa continues to remain China's
largest trade partner in Africa with bilateral trade volume growing
23 percent year-on-year to US$7.27 billion in 2005.
But analysts said that serial killings of Chinese in South
Africa in 2004 pulled down the number of Chinese tourists to the
country in 2005, which witnessed a decline of 14.9 percent on a
yearly basis.
"We want zero Chinese people to be killed in South Africa for
ever," Koloane said, adding that "we want no body to look down upon
South Africa."
Analysts here attributed the high rate of crimes in South Africa
to rampant use of guns, high unemployment rate and lack of death
penalty.
There are more than 100,000 Chinese nationals doing businesses
in South Africa, but the actual number is much higher, according to
Koloane.
Some 30 Chinese nationals were reportedly killed in South
Africa, but according to Koloane, the number was 24, namely 17 in
2004 and seven in 2005.
(Xinhua News Agency February 14, 2006)
