Passage of seasonal Zimbabwean migrants eased

A new labour migration centre at the Beitbridge border crossing between Zimbabwe and South Africa will be the first step in implementing an agreement between the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa to reduce irregular migration and promote safe, legal migration options.

The new centre, run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), was opened on 27 August, when the two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cooperation and support in the fields of labour and employment.

Erin Foster, the IOM information and communication officer in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, said the pilot project would facilitate the temporary migration of seasonal workers to South Africa’s northern Limpopo Province from three districts in Zimbabwe: Chiredzi, Masvingo and Beitbridge.

The goal of the project was “to reduce the dangers for migrants … [and] limit the risks that exist for individuals”. Zimbabwean job seekers – initially some 5,000 – would register with their local district labour centres, while South African farmers would register their labour requirements.

After a matching process run by the centre, workers will be issued with passports and work permits allowing them to travel for the duration of their contract.

“This development comes at a critical time when South Africa has announced a Special Dispensation Permit for Zimbabweans wanting to live and work in South Africa,” An IOM statement said.

Zanu-PF’s behaviour deviant – Gwede Mantashe

(Sapa-AFP) – South African President Jacob Zuma will discuss what he sees as “deviant behaviour” in Zimbabwe, when he visits Harare this week for talks on the power-sharing government, his party said Wednesday.

Gwede Mantashe, secretary general of Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC), said the president would be vocal about problems in Zimbabwe, a reversal of the quiet diplomacy practiced by former South African president Thabo Mbeki.

“President Zuma will be more vocal in terms of what we see as deviant behaviour,” Mantashe told reporters. “If there is deviant behaviour, we will be more vocal… but we will still engage.”

Mantashe said such “deviant behaviour” included the conduct of last year’s presidential run-off amid widespread political violence and the continuing harassment of lawmakers from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Tsvangirai joined long-ruling President Robert Mugabe in a unity government in February, meant to haul the nation from political turmoil and economic collapse.

South Africa is a key backer of the unity deal, and Zuma is currently the head of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the regional bloc that brokered the pact.

“What we want to see in Zimbabwe as the ANC, is to see what in our view is an economic and humanitarian crisis reversed,” Mantashe said.

Zuma is set to visit Harare on Thursday and Friday, where his office said he will meet with leaders of the country’s main parties to discuss the implementation of the power-sharing accord.

Zim nationals get more leeway in SA

By Louise Flanagan

Undocumented Zimbabweans already in South Africa may soon be able to apply for easier and faster legal status even if they have been arrested.

The Department of Home Affairs has waived visa requirements for Zimbabweans trying to get into SA legally and is now planning a new “exemption certificate” for undocumented Zimbabweans already here.

The exemption certificate is for both undocumented Zimbabweans living in SA illegally and those who have applied for asylum but are unlikely to qualify as they are economic migrants rather than refugees. It will be valid for a year.

Home Affairs spokesperson Siobhan McCarthy said offices for the exemption certificate applicants would be set up in Musina, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.

Home Affairs is trying to arrange office In Joburg, an application facility will probably be set up in the Lindela repatriation centre, said McCarthy.

This means that if undocumented migrants are arrested and face deportation, they will be able to apply for a special exemption certificate from Lindela.

The visa waiver has already been implemented as existing border officials can deal with it.

The day after South Africa waived visa requirements for Zimbabweans last week, about 13 percent more people moved through the Beitbridge border post – but officials said it was not more than festive season traffic.

The waiver makes it easier for Zimbabweans to move legally in and out of South Africa, like citizens of other Southern African Development Community states who do not need visas for SA.

More importantly, Zimbabweans may now work here without having to apply for a work permit. This waiver does not apply to citizens of other SADC states and it was granted to Zimbabweans because of that country’s failed economy.

Zimbabweans save the R425 cost of a visa, plus the R2 000 deposit previously required, but the greater advantage is the avoidance of endless paperwork.

Zimbabweans can apply for this permit on arrival at the border and must tell the border officials whether or not they intend to seek work.

If they do, the officials grant a permit for 90 days.

This permit may be renewed from within SA once for another 90 days, at a cost of R425. After that, the Zimbabwean must leave the country before returning to apply for another permit.

The advantage for SA is that Home Affairs officials hope this will help regularise Zimbabwe migrants, sending most work seekers through the border posts rather than around them.

As the system requires Zimbabweans to apply at a border, it is aimed at legally arriving mi-grants, not those already in the country illegally.

McCarthy said many Zimbabweans who were in SA illegally could not afford the visas, while the costs and difficulties of getting the old visas also resulted in corruption among officials.

“Most people want to come into the country legally,” she said.

She emphasised that although the visa requirement was waived, Zimbabweans would still need passports or emergency passports. Zimbabwean authorities have promised to make these documents cheaper.

McCarthy said most Zimbabweans wanted to be able to move in and out of SA, returning to Zimbabwe, rather than moving into SA and not leaving.

“But once people enter the country illegally, it’s then difficult for them to leave.”

The system will be reviewed in a year.

Finding a legal solution for the unknown thousands of undocumented Zimbabweans illegally in South Africa was one of many recommendations arising out of research into last year’s xenophobic violence.

“Government should consider opening more channels for legal migration. Such an approach would not only encourage legal migration and help reverse clandestine migration; it would help reduce the ‘us vs them’ mentality that contributed to the attacks,” wrote the Forced Migration Studies Programme of Wits University in a report for the International Organisation for Migration.

The Human Sciences Research Council also recommended enabling undocumented immigrants to get legal status, without fear of deportation.

In its report on the violence, the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs urged the government to “review the legal options provided to those undocumented non-nationals affected by the violence, with the aim of ensuring a more human rights-based and humane response”. – iol news

Jacob Zuma’s election victory intensifies pressure on Mugabe

By David Smith|Guardian

Jacob Zuma’s election victory in South Africa has been welcomed by ministers in Zimbabwe as intensifying pressure on President Robert Mugabe.

Zuma, whose African National Congress (ANC) looked on course last night to retain its two-thirds parliamentary majority, has been outspoken in his criticism of Mugabe’s autocratic rule.

He has since come out in support of the power-sharing agreement between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Zuma has criticised his predecessor Thabo Mbeki’s approach of “quiet diplomacy” towards the crisis-torn neighbour.

Tendai Biti, finance minister in the unity government and secretary-general of the MDC, yesterday looked forward to a Zuma presidency. “I don’t think it will be quiet diplomacy,” he told the Guardian. “That was buried on 22 September 2008, the day Mbeki was removed. I expect a more forthright, honest and hands-on diplomacy.

“Jacob Zuma is not Thabo Mbeki and that means a lot. I know the man and meet him regularly and know the way he thinks.”

Unlike Britain and America, South Africa has thrown its weight behind the power-sharing agreement, despite concerns that Mugabe and his allies remain dominant. Biti added: “South Africa is leading the way in supporting us directly, including financial assistance. They recognise the problem requires international support. They’ve been calling for that consistently.”

Zuma, who has a track record on brokering peace deals in conflict areas, is thought to be keen to keep the ear of Mugabe. But he has family ties with the MDC: last year one of his daughters married the son of Welshman Ncube, a leading figure in the party.

David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s minister of education and an MDC senator, said: “The key for us is that Jacob Zuma wins and assumes the presidency. Of the last three – Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and Zuma – he has been the most outspoken. I think Robert Mugabe will be fairly nervous about his relationship with him.

“Zuma and Mugabe are very different characters. You would never see Mugabe singing a song in front of the faithful and dressed in casual attire.”

Coltart added: “There has been concern here that, because South Africans have been distracted, elements of Zanu-PF have been pushing the envelope. I think those who have been blatantly breaching the agreement will now have to watch themselves.”

South Africa is regarded as the democratic anchor of the continent. After the violent crackdown that followed last year’s disputed elections in Zimbabwe, Zuma said: “We cannot agree with Zanu-PF, we cannot agree with them on values. We fought for the right of people to vote. We fought for democracy.”

But the long-running bribery and corruption allegations against Zuma, dropped just before the election, left a nasty taste in the mouths of many, and there are concerns that he lacks credibility as a democratic flag-bearer.

Anxieties among Zuma’s critics grew yesterday as the ANC remained confident that it would narrowly retain its two-thirds parliamentary majority, giving it the power to change the constitution. With nearly 14.5m votes counted, the ANC led with a 66.91% share.

The opposition Democratic Alliance claimed 15.62% while the Congress of the People (Cope), formed by a breakaway faction of the ANC last year, was trailing on 7.53%.

SA Opens Special Center to Register Asylum Seekers

By Scott Bobb|VOA News

The South African government this week opens a special center to register asylum seekers from southern Africa and in particular Zimbabwe. The center is also to help implement a new program that will allow Zimbabwean economic migrants to stay legally in the country.

The Director of Refugee Affairs in South Africa’s Home Affairs Ministry, Busisiwe Mkhwebane-Tshehla, this past week led a tour of a large hall in western Pretoria.

The newly opened Tswane Interim Refugee Reception office is to register thousands of people who come to South Africa from around the region.

“The center will at first be a refugee reception office where we’ll receive asylum applications,” Mkhwebane-Tshehla said. “We’ll consider their applications and then we’ll determine whether they qualify for refugee status.”

The new facility, with a staff of 100 people, will be able to process more than 400 applications per day. Officials say, moreover, the applicants will receive a decision on their petition on the same day they apply and will be able to file an appeal if they are rejected.

Millions of southern Africans have come to South Africa saying they are fleeing political repression at home. The influx is straining the existing centers which can take weeks to process asylum applications.

But Mkhwebane-Tshehla says the government believes most immigrants from the region come primarily looking for jobs and it rejects most applications.

“There are very few approvals because most of the time you will find that our applicants are economic migrants who would want to legalize themselves in the country so that they can work and study in South Africa,” Mkhwebane-Tshehla said.

Officials say 65 percent of all asylum applications come from the 15 nations of the Southern African Development Community, SADC. And they say half of these applicants are from Zimbabwe where the economy has declined by 40 percent in the past decade and unemployment has surpassed 90 percent.

Many of the estimated three million Zimbabweans in South Africa do not have documents and daily risk arrest and deportation.

The government says this risk is to end under a new policy, announced earlier this month, that will allow all Zimbabweans to stay legally in South Africa for up to six months.

A senior official in the Department of Refugee Affairs, Richard Stoltz, says the new center is designed to help the government implement the new policy.

“This center will be our flagship because it’s designed for that,” Stoltz said. “But we will endeavor to implement similar processes in each of our provinces so that we can ensure that there is a universal implementation of that program.”

He said Zimbabweans will be given special permits allowing them to work or study in South Africa and access local health services.

“Any Zimbabwean national who has credible means of identification and can be proven to be of that nationality will not be deported,” Stoltz said.

Human rights activists have welcomed the new program but wonder what will happen after the six month period has expired.

South African officials note that the new power sharing government in Zimbabwe has announced a multi-billion dollar economic stabilization plan.

They hope this will ease the influx of refugees. If not, they say they will consider extending the permits or other options.

Jo’burg to move Zimbabwean migrants into shelters

(IRIN) – Zimbabwean migrants living in and around the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, are to be moved into shelters next week, according to Daniel Ramarumo, a local government spokesperson.

The most vulnerable of the hundreds of migrants will be given priority and provided with accommodation for an initial three months. Skills training will also be offered, Ramarumo told IRIN.

“These [shelters] are not government buildings and it takes time to enter into contracts. We also have to factor in security, food, whether there are enough beds available,” he added.

More than 100 infants are helped by the church, which relies on donations to provide baby formula and nappies (diapers).

According to Bishop Paul Verryn of the Methodist Church, local government has yet to update him on the progress of relocation, which was triggered when local merchants, unhappy with the unhygienic conditions created by the migrants sleeping rough, instituted legal action.

SA grants legal status to Zim asylum seekers

ZIMBABWEANS who have entered South Africa seeking political asylum and employment will be given a “special dispensation” permit, the Department of Home Affairs of that country said last Wednesday.

“The permit confers on them the right to stay in South Africa for a period of six months, it confers on them the right to schooling or education, it confers on them the right to work and access to basic health care,” said Home Affairs director general of Immigration Services, Jackie MacKay.

“We have taken an important decision which acknowledges that migration patterns between South Africa and Zimbabwean have probably changed permanently,” said Home Affairs Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba.

Zimbabweans will need to apply for the permit at Home Affairs and provide proof of their nationality.

If they do not have official identification, they will go through testing.

“They will go through what we call a country verification test with the assistance of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees. They have certain tests they do to ascertain a person’s nationality. And based on that advice they will be able to tell us whether a person is a Zimbabwean or not,” said MacKay.

“We have this special dispensation because of the undocumented flow of illegal migrants from Zimbabwe into South Africa and we are trying to regularise the flow of people coming and going,” he said.

The special dispensation is predicated at lessening the pressures the large numbers of Zimbabwean migrants have created in South Africa.

MacKay said many Zimbabweans who apply for political asylum are, instead simply looking for employment. But once given asylum, they are barred from returning to Zimbabwe.

This forces them to stay in South Africa when they might prefer to live in this country for only a short amount of time.

“Most Zimbabweans are not asylum seekers, they are economic migrants. So what they want to do is to come into the country do some work and go back
home and take money back.

“We also believe this special dispensation will result in foreign currency going into Zimbabwe and assist in building up that country,” said MacKay.

Six month permits

The special dispensation will be a six-month permit. Whether it is renewed will not be based on the applicant, but rather the economic situation in Zimbabwe, according to the Home Affairs department.

“After six months we will review what the situation in Zimbabwean is, can people go back, has the economic climate improved?” said MacKay.

Gigaba said police would not be allowed to arrest Zimbabweans who had the special dispensation permits but proof of the permit would be needed.

“Just because you say you are a Zimbabwean national doesn’t mean they can’t arrest you,” said Gigaba.

- Sapa/Zimbabwe Guardian

Refugees still arriving daily in S Africa

By Mxolisi Ncube|Zimbabwe Times

Hundreds of Zimbabweans are said to be still arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa daily, despite reports that their country’s economic situation has improved since the recent formation of a government of national unity.

Zimbabwe’s decade-long economic crisis is said to be showing signs of easing, after the country’s adoption of multi-currencies, followed by the formation of the all-inclusive government between President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parties.

Although the Southern African Women for Immigration Affairs (SAWIMA) says that it has recorded decreased numbers of desperate Zimbabwean immigrants seeking help at its offices since the beginning of March, officials at the Central Methodist Church, which is already home to 4 000 predominantly Zimbabwean refugees, told The Zimbabwe Times this week that they seen an increased number of new arrivals during the same period.

SAWIMA spokesperson, Joice Dube, said that since the formation of the all-inclusive government the organization had been receiving less than 50 desperate Zimbabwean immigrants seeking humanitarian help at the offices a day, and that all of them were economic refugees, unlike in the past.

“We used to have hundreds of people here in the past, when the Zimbabwean crisis was at its worst, but now we host between 20 and 50 people, most of them coming from refugee camps that were dismantled by the South African government recently,” said Dube.

She said that after receiving help, the refugees would then be referred to the Methodist refugee centre, where they are accommodated and fed.

Officials at the Methodist Church, however, told The Zimbabwe Times that they had experienced an increase in the number of new arrivals both straight from Zimbabwe and from the dismantled refugee centres, especially at the beginning of March.

“The situation concerning those Zimbabweans that have already been here worsened at the beginning of March, when the refugee centres were dismantled,” said an official at the church.

“Even the number of new arrivals coming straight from Zimbabwe has not eased, as people keep coming.

“We still receive between 80 and 120 new Zimbabwean economic immigrants, who come to South Africa seeking employment.

“There have been fewer political refugees arriving since the formation of the national unity government though”

The officials said that the economic refugees tell them that the situation on the ground has still not changed much for the better in Zimbabwe, where there is still a high rate of unemployment and everything is now quoted in foreign currency.

“They say that they have been finding life even more difficult in their country, where the unemployed cannot access the foreign currency that shops accept, while informal trade, which was striving in the past, has become very difficult due to the changing economic climate, where goods are getting cheaper and available in shops.”

Some of the newly-arrived refugees, who spoke to The Zimbabwe Times, confirmed that they had been finding life difficult in Zimbabwe.

“To be able to survive in Zimbabwe, you need to have foreign currency, and most of us do not have that kind of money,” said Zwelihle Moyo, a 28-year-old man from Tsholotsho, a rural area in the south-western regions of the country.

“Most of us have not been working, and that had made life very difficult for us.”

Officials at the church said that the continued arrival of more immigrants had further stretched the church’s own resources, while also worsening the general living conditions for the refugees.

“We were already having problems taking care of the refugees that have been here all along and these new arrivals have made things even worse for us,” he said.

“There is no space to move because of overcrowding, while food reserves are fast diminishing by the day.”

However, those refugees that have been at the church for long expressed mixed feelings.

While political exiles, most of them former Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists, said that they would rather stay put in South Africa, than return to Zimbabwe, some economic refugees said that they would be happy to go back home.

“I cannot go back to Zimbabwe,” said one political activist from Masvingo.

The man, a former soldier in the Zimbabwean army who became an MDC activist, says that he is a wanted man in Zimbabwe.

“I came here early this year,” he said. “I would rather suffer here in a foreign country, than go back to Zimbabwe. I know that one day things will work out fine for me here.”

Other exiled activists also expressed fear that they would be arrested and tortured upon arrival in Zimbabwe, as they said that there had been no guarantee of their safety.

“I welcome the new government of national unity that has been formed in Zimbabwe, but I do not feel that it is safe for me to go back there now,” said Gift Nhidza, a former MDC security man, who was tortured by state agents, incurring several injuries on his limbs and in the spinal cord.

“The new government should first arrest those who brutalized us, and then make promises that those like me, who are wanted on trumped up charges are not persecuted when we arrive back home.”

Nhidza, also a former soldier, says that he is also wanted for the alleged training of bandits in South Africa, which he says is a false charge.

Other political refugees said that even if they wanted to go back to Zimbabwe, they had nowhere to go.

“My home was burnt down and even if I go there, I will sleep in the open, while here I have this church as a home. The government should re-build our homes before we can talk about going back there,” said another former MDC activist, who comes from Gokwe, in Zimbabwe’s Midlands’s province.

However, economic refugees, especially those that have been stayed at the church for more than six months, expressed their desire to go back home, but said that they did not have money, as they have not been working.

“If I get a sponsor who can give just bus fare, I will go back home even now,” said Charles Chikuni, who has been unemployed since arriving in South Africa in 2007.

“When I came here, I thought that things would work out easily for me, but now I have seen that this country is not that different from Zimbabwe, especially for us foreigners.”

He complained that he had been exploited while doing part-time jobs in Johannesburg since his arrival.

“Since coming here, I have not managed to get any job that has paid me more than R2 500, yet I have been working with locals that earned more than that, despite us performing the same tasks.”

The refugees said that once employers knew that someone was coming from the church, they made sure that they exploited them, while living conditions in the church are said to be worsening by the day, due to the continued influx of Zimbabweans.

“Due to the high number of refugees, the church has stopped feeding those that have been here for long, in preference of the new arrivals, while overcrowding has seen some now sleeping out in the open at night,” said Marshal Moyo, another economic refugee who said that he was ready to return to Zimbabwe.

There are a number of employed refugees who prefer to live in the church to take advantage of free accommodation.

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