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S African police raid Zimbabweans
Mxolisi Ncube, The Zimbabwe Times
October 15, 2008

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=5900

Members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and that country's Home Affairs Department officials have launched a crackdown in which they are arresting Zimbabwean political refugees and deporting them, in total disregard even if they hold valid asylum permits, The Zimbabwe Times has learnt.

The random police raids have allegedly targeted densely populated areas such as Hillbrow, Berea, Yeoville and Diepsloot, which house most Zimbabweans.

Scores of Zimbabwean asylum seekers, told The Zimbabwe Times in Johannesburg that they were now living in fear of being arrested and deported, following reports that the police have, beginning two weeks ago, launched a crackdown, in which they have been arbitrarily arresting even those with valid asylum permits, telling them to go back to their own country.

"I was arrested on Friday by members of the SAPS who raided my shack in Diepsloot," said Nkanyiso Ndlovu. "When I told them that I hold a valid asylum permit they demanded to see it. I showed them the permit, which runs up to December, but they told me that the permits have now expired because the Zimbabwean situation is now under control. I was forced to pay them R100, after they had confiscated the permit and insisted on arresting me."

Several other asylum seekers living in these areas said they have been arrested, some of them three times over the past week alone, while others accused the police of tearing their asylum permits, claiming that the documents were no longer valid.

"I now have to go and queue for yet another permit because the first one has been destroyed. This attack seems to be targeting Zimbabweans only because other foreign nationals are not being arrested," said Edward Shoko who lives in Hillbrow.

On Monday, our correspondent witnessed a heavy presence of police trucks in central Johannesburg, especially around Hillbrow, as the police continued to raid Zimbabweans.

No official comment could be obtained from the police. Officers on the ground denied that they were targetting Zimbabweans alone.

"We are raiding all illegal foreigners and this is just a random activity, not an operation. We arrest only those who do not have valid papers to be here," said one policeman.

Various civic groups run by Zimbabweans in Johannesburg as well as officials of the MDC, which recently signed a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF, lashed out at the police and Home Affairs officials over their alleged ill-treatment of Zimbabwean asylum seekers.

"We even heard that during our meeting with the Home Affairs department's Director General, Mavuso Msimang on Friday, our countrymen were chased away by a dog-handling security guard from offices in Pretoria, where they had gone to queue for asylum permits. We hope that the meeting we had and others to follow will address this problem," said Dube.

The MDC held a meeting with Msimang in Midrand, Johannesburg, on Friday morning, after the Home Affairs Department had begun to reject asylum applications by Zimbabweans.

Solomon Chikohwero, who chairs the newly launched MDC Veteran Activists Association, said that his organisation would this week seek dialogue with South Africa's Director of Home Affairs to try and address the situation.

"We are not happy," he said. "Such intolerable behaviour by the SAPS and Home Affairs should be castigated. As a concerned organisation, we feel that the actions of these two government entities are unfair and despicable.

"The power-sharing agreement does not deal with the issue of victims of political violence and will not transform the country's political environment overnight. .. it is the responsibility of the new government, the United Nations and other entities such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in conjunction with the host countries, to come up with a framework for the repatriation of refugees. The police and home affairs are doing this illegally."

Norah Tapiwa, of Global Zimbabwe, said that the Zimbabwean deal would not solve the country's political problems as long as Mugabe remains in charge of the country's uniformed forces, something that the octogenarian leader is demanding.

"As long as Mugabe remains in charge of the army and the police, there will be no change to political violence. He has previously used them to commit all these crimes against humanity, what will stop him now if he retains that control? Once things work out in Zimbabwe, there will be no need for us to be pushed out of South Africa or any other country, we will just leave on our own because we also want to return to our country to re-build it. The South African authorities should understand that," said Tapiwa.

Home Affairs department spokesperson, Siobhan McCarthy, however, denied the reports, saying that nothing had changed in their treatment of Zimbabweans.

"I have not heard about that," said McCarthy. "We still recognise the asylum permits and it is illegal for anyone to tear them up. We are also still issuing out the permits."

This is not the first time that South Africa's Home Affairs department has been accused of alleged ill-treatment of Zimbabwean asylum seekers.

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