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Zambia expels Zimbabweans as crisis rages
Kitsepile Nyathi, The Nation (Nairobi)
May 06, 2008

http://allafrica.com/stories/200805060087.html

The Zambian government has deported hundreds of traders from neighboring Zimbabwe, a move that will pile pressure on President Robert Mugabe to find a solution to his country's long-running political crisis.

Zimbabwe plunged deeper into a political quagmire at the weekend, when opposition leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai rejected the results of the March 29 presidential elections.

The results, released a month after the disputed polls, showed that Mr Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) beat Mr Mugabe, but failed to avoid a second round of voting.

Mr Tsvangirai says the results were manipulated and has so far refused to take part in the runoff on a date yet to be set by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who also chairs the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has been one of the most outspoken African leaders against the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.

Thousands of Zimbabweans flock into neighboring countries on a daily basis in search of basic commodities, which are extremely scarce at home, and Zambia has been the most accommodating and rarely deports the traders.

The state media in Harare accused Zambian soldiers and police of stealing from the Zimbabweans, and quoted a member of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), a grouping of security chiefs close to Mr Mugabe, as saying they would take the issue up with Lusaka very soon.

The traders were rounded up at the resort town of Livingstone and dumped in the no-man's land separating the two countries' borders along the Zambezi River in the dead of night, state media said.

"I can confirm that we received the deportees and recorded statements from them," said Senior Assistant Commissioner Edmore Veterai, who chairs a provincial organ of the JOC. "We are now going to take up the issue as JOC and find out from our Zambian counterparts what happened. We will also investigate the allegations raised by those who were deported."

The MDC says the JOC took over the day-to-day running of the government soon after realizing that Mr Mugabe and Zanu PF had been defeated, a charge denied by government.

The state-run Chronicle newspaper acknowledged that cases of Zimbabweans being deported from Zambia have been few, given the historical ties between the two countries.

But it warned that authorities in Harare might retaliate because Zimbabwe was also awash with informal traders from Zambia, who have been conducting their business freely for years.

The deportations came as South Africa announced that it will send a team to Zimbabwe to investigate claims of violence blamed on Mr Mugabe's supporters.

President Thabo Mbeki told African religious leaders at a meeting that he was concerned about reports of escalating violence in the neighboring country. Botswana, which last week announced that it had set up a temporary refugee camp for Zimbabweans fleeing the political violence, has also tightened the screws on its neighbor by banning the importation of gasoline through its borders.

On Sunday, it reiterated its claims that it was being overwhelmed by Zimbabweans claiming political persecution at home.

In a statement, Minister for Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Dikgakgamatso Seretse, said there had been an influx of refugees seeking international protection in the aftermath of the polls.

"For some time we have been receiving illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe seeking economic opportunities who have been crossing at ungazetted entry points into Botswana," he said.

Few of these people sought asylum, Mr Seretse said. "But, since the elections, we have received a number of people actively seeking political asylum and international protection and alleging they feared for their lives," he said, adding that there was a probability the numbers would grow.

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