E/CN.4/1999/15/Add.1 page 19 Malawites and Zimbabweans, some of whom were long-term residents of South Africa. 69. Other victims of popular xenophobia are foreign street hawkers (Chinese, Indians, Mozambicans, Nigerians, Senegalese, Somalis, Zimbabweans), against whom corporate organizations and others such as Micro Business against Crime, the Illegal Foreigners Action Group, the African Chamber of Hawkers and Independent Business and the Greater Johannesburg Hawkers Association issue threats and encourage boycotts and aggression. Some members of these organizations have taken action: in August 1997 in Johannesburg, South African street hawkers attacked their foreign counterparts, among whom were several Senegalese traders, beating them and destroying their stalls and goods while the crowd chanted “Phansi makwerewere”(“down with the foreigners”). 70. One of the causes of this wave of xenophobia is the fact that under the apartheid regime, South Africa was cut off from the rest of the African continent and regarded itself as an outpost of Europe and its culture. Africans were depicted as savages and accomplices of the UN, which was held responsible for the economic sanctions imposed on the apartheid regime. The solidarity that Africans showed regarding the oppressed peoples of South Africa was little known to the majority of South Africans, kept unaware by the apartheid regime. Former South African refugees who have returned home after exile are alone in displaying tolerance and openness to the nationals of other African countries which welcomed them and supported their struggle against apartheid. After President Nelson Mandela came to power, it took the African Nations Football Cup in 1996 to make South Africans aware, via their television screens, of the other peoples and nations on their continent. The Special Rapporteur’s mission took place during the 1998 African Nations Cup, an event which further familiarized South Africans with the other African peoples. 71. Another reason behind this attitude is the desire to prevent foreigners benefiting from the huge programme of redistribution of economic resources being implemented by the government. The fact is that the population, which can hardly accuse the government of not representing its interests, attributes all society’s problems to the foreigners: unemployment, the increase in criminality, etc. The immigrants are accused of “taking” work intended for South Africans, of eroding union standards by accepting very low wages and deplorable working conditions, of benefiting from social services without contributing to them, and thus of undermining the government’s reconstruction and development programme. 72. However, just as the statistics produced on numbers of illegal immigrants are not reliable, neither is the estimated cost of illegal immigration into South Africa 12/. The influence of illegal persons on the economy of the country must be evaluated by taking account of the following factors: 12/ The remarks of the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Buthelezi, that “illegal foreigners would cost the government R221 million [in 1995] and that the cost could reach R 1 billion in six years… The implications of these kinds of figures for the Reconstruction and Development Programme are quite awesome” have yet to be borne out.