National Heroes Angry at SA Xenophobic Violence

"We did not struggle to find ourselves in this present situation," Rivonia trialist Andrew Mlangeni said at the opening of the Liliesleaf Farm museum on Friday.

South Africans regard others as foreigners in their own country, and they are looting and destroying other people's property, he told a small gathering of struggle comrades and African National Congress (ANC) leaders.

"I don't know whether [these acts are perpetrated by] the youth or whether a force is behind this," said Mlangeni.

"I can't see a thing of this nature starting here today, tomorrow it's there, the following days it's there in a different province ... There must be something behind it. I don't know, a well-funded thing.

"The government is not able to put its finger on it and say it is this and this and that. We are all still guessing.

"That is what annoys me. It makes me very angry. It makes me very sad," Mlangeni said.

Primrose, a middle-class suburb in the east of Johannesburg, was one of the areas hardest hit by the xenophobic attacks that began three weeks ago.

The neighbourhood's Primula Street -- usually quiet and calm -- was packed with thousands of refugees seeking shelter from the violence. Some of them slept on the streets, meaning residents had to find alternative routes to get to and from work.

Three weeks later, life is slowly returning to normal.

Normal means conforming to a standard; a usual, typical or expected way of living or being. To most South Africans this means waking up taking a warm shower or bath followed by a hot breakfast before rushing off to work.

For the displaced foreigners living at Primrose Park next to the Primrose police station, however, normal means waking up in a 4mx5m white tent next to nine or 10 other people and queuing for bread and tea among thousands.