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SA's Zim exodus plan
Drew Forrest, Mail & Guardian (SA)
August 09, 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/insight/insight__africa&articleid=316232

The government is dusting off a 2002 plan to deal with a feared mass influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa, amid a growing official recognition that economic migration is snowballing towards crisis. Last week Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad told a media conference in Pretoria that the Zimbabwean influx was "a serious problem" and that it was "vital for South Africa to act". And, in a further sign that the tide of migration is rising, the home affairs department disclosed this week that 100 000 Zimbabwean "illegals" had been deported in the past six months. A total of 80 000 were deported in the whole of last year, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The Mail & Guardian has been informed that the original 2002 crisis plan identified possible sites for refugee or transit camps, where new arrivals would be held while their status was determined.

A senior government official, who asked not to be named, said the plan had been "sitting in a cupboard" since it was written. In consultation with other departments and the security forces, it would be scrutinised and, if necessary, "beefed up", before being presented to the Cabinet by Home Affairs Minister Nosi-viwe Mapisa-Nqakula. The official would not give details of the plan and did not say when it was likely to go to Cabinet, but added: "We're constantly accused of having no coordinated response. It's just not true." Another informant told the M&G that the spur for the 2002 process, launched under former home affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was Zimbabwe's turbulent 2002 presidential election and fears of mass flight to South Africa.

The committee that came up with the plan was chaired by a top official of provincial and local government affairs, as the lead department in disaster management, and involved senior representatives of other departments, including home affairs, the police and the defence force. The South African branch of the International Red Cross had been drawn in to give advice. The committee had identified "at least two" sites where Zimbabweans would be confined in the event of a large-scale exodus. Home affairs would interview the new arrivals and single out those with a claim to refugee status, the informant said. Home affairs was asked to confirm this, but had not replied by the M&G's Thursday print deadline.

The government source said that a key difficulty was that a special dispensation for Zimbabweans might spark complaints of discriminatory treatment, given that other nationals, including Basotho, Malawians and Congolese, were also seeking refugee status. Last week Mapisa-Nqakula rejected as "misplaced" a DA call for refugee camps on South Africa's northern border, saying only one Zimbabwean had been recorded as applying for asylum at Beit Bridge between January 1 and June 30 this year. Mapisa-Nqakula quoted Unicef and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees confirming the government's view that camps were not needed. But, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), which litigates on behalf of asylum-seekers, attacked her statement as "a crude distortion of reality".

Pointing out that close to 19 000 Zimbabweans had applied for asylum last year, LHR said the minister appeared to be using misleading statistics from border posts rather than the refugee reception offices in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Many asylum-seekers were refused asylum transit permits or arrested and deported at border posts; others were not crossing into South Africa at official ports of entry, the LHR said. Home affairs spokesperson Jacky Mashapu said 3 074 Zimbabweans had applied for asylum in the first quarter of the year -- confirming the suspicions of the LHR's refugee and migrant rights project coordinator, Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, that the number of Zimbabwean asylum-seekers has grown. He added that only 79 applications had been granted. Ramjathan-Keogh said that on the morning of July 20 there were 1 800 people in the queue outside the Marabastad, Pretoria, asylum-seekers' reception centre, 90% of them Zimbabwean. Some spent "weeks, if not months, sleeping outside the reception offices" in a quest for temporary permits allowing them to work and study in South Africa.

Mapisa-Nqakula's statement narrowly interprets "refugee", in terms of South Africa's Refugee Act, applying only to those with a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country. But it concedes, significantly, that "there have been recorded increases in the number of people entering the country illegally". There is consensus that economically desperate migrants crossing in search of basic goods or work - who have no legal claim to refugee status - make up the vast bulk of arrivals. NGOs and government officials agree that although there has been no sudden avalanche of economic migrants, there has been a noticeable increase this year and that the numbers are set to grow. The tally of Zimbabwean deportations this year bears this out - although Sally Peberdy of the Southern African Migration Project emphasised that more strenuous police efforts to track down illegals were also a factor. The IOM, which helps deportees on the Zimbabwean side of the Beit Bridge border, said South Africa forcibly repatriated 86 000 Zimbabweans in the first five months of this year - more than the whole of last year. The figure takes no account of border-crossers who remain at large in South Africa. Musina advice office counsellor Joseph Matikani estimated that they could match the number of deportees.

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