Back to Index

Botswana hunts down illegal Zim immigrants
ZimOnline
November 08, 2006

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=426

GABORONE – The newspapers here in Botswana simply call them aliens but the locals call them "makwerekwere", a highly contemptuous term.

Last week, the "makwerekweres" or immigrants from Zimbabwe were at the receiving end of a vicious campaign by the Botswana authorities to weed out illegal immigrants from their troubled northern neighbour.

The crackdown caught the huge band of Zimbabweans in Botswana by surprise because of its sheer intensity and scope.

There are thousands of Zimbabweans staying illegally in Botswana after fleeing a debilitating seven-year old economic crisis at home, critics blame on mismanagement by that country’s President Robert Mugabe.

Several Zimbabweans who spoke to ZimOnline last week had sad tales to tell following the military-style door-to-door crackdown by heavily armed teams of police and soldiers.

"I woke up to shouts and an impatient knock on the door only to discover a few minutes later that the whole neighbourhood was under siege," said Henderson Masuku.

Masuku, a Zimbabwean national resident in Ledumadumane suburb in the capital Gaborone, said the soldiers were kicking down doors and demanding identity cards and passports from people.

"Hundreds of illegal immigrants were arrested together with many others who had their papers in order simply because the officers believed that the stamps on their passports or permits were forged.

"A lot of people could only watch as their travel documents were torn up and trashed," said Masuku, who was still visibly in a state of shock.

Another Zimbabwean illegal immigrant, Tracy Chikomo, said she was also deported during the crackdown but was back in the country after bribing some immigration officers at the border.

"The police are now flushing out Zimbabweans wherever they can find them. They say we are all over the country now, so not one inch of ground should be spared in the raids," said Chikomo.

The Botswana authorities have however described last week’s operation in glowing terms saying they had managed to flush out over 6 000 illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe.

"The operation was a huge success because we managed to flush out many illegal immigrants. We know that the Zimbabweans feel bad about the raids.

"But they must know that as the police, we have no problem with them as long as they enter the country legally and have valid work permits," said Godfrey Ditshipi, a senior police officer in Francistown.

Ditshipi said they were deporting an average of 400 Zimbabweans every week from mostly northern towns and cattle farms, known as cattle posts here and where immigrants work as cheap labour herding cattle and goats.

"We always try to do our best to prevent them from coming back, but they still do so in larger numbers than before.

"We understand there are many factors forcing these people to leave their country, but they have to do so legally. But the clean-up operation will continue," said Ditshipi.

But not everyone in Botswana is happy over the methods used to flush out illegal Zimbabwean immigrants.

For example Kiki Raletobana, a local who lives in the second largest city of Francistown, described the crackdown on illegal immigrants as arrogant and high-handed.

Said Raletobana: "While it is the duty of the police to weed out illegal immigrants, we do not understand why they have to wake up the whole country to search for people they can find in the streets at any given time.

"The soldiers displayed such raw arrogance that as homeowners we were left wondering if this country had come under military rule.

"We also wonder if unarmed illegal immigrants are so dangerous that the security forces had to brandish firearms as if they were hunting down rogue animals."

As for the immigrants themselves, they feel hard done by Botswana President Festus Mogae and other regional leaders they accuse of only being good at expelling them from their countries but doing little to pressure Mugabe to end an economic meltdown behind the exodus of Zimbabweans into neighbouring countries and beyond.

"Our neighbours will not even say a single word against Mugabe but when we flee the economic hardships caused by his policies they chase us from their countries," said a man who would only identify himself as Joseph and who claimed to have deserted from the Zimbabwe army to come to Botswana to look for a better paying job as a private security guard.

And to understand Joseph’s point, one only needs to recall the words of Botswana Foreign Affairs Minister General Mompati Merafhe.

In a briefing to journalists weeks ago, Merafhe said although there were problems in Zimbabwe, Gaborone was more concerned about the crisis in far off Darfur in Sudan because there, people were dying.

He said: "There is no human carnage in Zimbabwe but people are being killed in Darfur. We must make a distinction between the two situations. In Zimbabwe, the politics are not right, but the situation cannot be compared to that of Sudan."

Perhaps Joseph and his fellow "makwerekwere" will have to drop dead because of hunger for Merafhe and other regional foreign policy chiefs to hear their cries for help. - ZimOnline

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP