Migration News - April 1999

April 1999

• Khathu Mamaila reports for the Sowetan (Johannesburg 29/04) that Karen Dzimba braved the crocodile-infested Limpopo River when he crossed to Messina in search of greener pastures. Like many "illegal immigrants" from Zimbabwe, he found a job on a farm. He and two fellow Zimabweans were offered R120 a month, which they accepted. They toiled for a whole month but at the end of February - when they were supposed to be paid - the white farmer refused to pay them. He told them to work for another month before they would get their wages. A dispute erupted when they demanded their money. The farmer, angered by the "cheeky" Zimbabweans, allegedly fetched a rifle from his house and started shooting at the three workers. A bullet allegedly hit Dzimba in his hand. Dzimba, bleeding profusely, walked for more than 15km to the Waterpoort police station to report the incident. The police took him to Siloam Hospital, where he was admitted. A few days after he was discharged, he disappeared and possibly returned home. Waterpoort police said they could not continue with the case as the complainant could not be traced. But his story is not an isolated one. Shirami Shirinda, a fieldworker of the Nkunzi Development Association, a non-governmental organisation championing the rights of farmworkers in Northern Province, told Sowetan of another case. They were recruited near the border by a white farmer and promised jobs. Twelve of them worked on a farm in February without any pay. At the end of that month, they were told to leave the farm. They went to the police but were told the police could not act as the workers were involved in a labour dispute and not a criminal matter.

• Business Day (Pretoria 29/04) reports that xenophobia is on the rise in the post-apartheid South Africa, with a growing number of brutal attacks and killings of foreigners, says the United Nations (UN) refugee agency. "In the past two years, more than 30 innocent refugees and asylum seekers have been brutally killed, simply because they were foreigners," said a report released by the deputy regional representative of the UN high Commissioner for Refugees, Mengesha Kebede. The report was co-authored with the SA Human Rights Commission and the National Consortium on Refugees Affairs. The high commission and non-governmental organisations released it at the launch of a public awareness campaign against xenophobia. David McDonald of the Southern African Migration Project said xenophobia was mainly fueled by a belief that immigrants were taking scarce jobs and were responsible for rising crime and disease. He argued that "many immigrants were victims of crime and not perpetrators of crime in South Africa". Up to 23% of foreigners in South Africa were assaulted and another 42% robbed.

• Business Day (28/04) reports that according to the University of South Africa’s graduate school on business, the government lost R8.4bn of potential income tax as a result of emigration by graduate and professionals between 1994 and 1997. The study compiled by Reinhold Joubert, associate professor of economics, concludes that the cost of emigration may not appear drastic in a single year, but "if the trend continues it will have it will have a drastic result on South Africa in the long run. Emigration is like syrup running from a spoon. If it starts to run, it is difficult to stop". The study estimates that graduates and professionals, contributing 1,5% of GDP, emigrated in the three years to 1997. Joubert and Fourie says the average graduates in 1997 had the potential to contribute R7, 4m over their working lives to the economy. They calculate that the brain drain in four years under review cost the SA economy R285bn in potential contributions to overall GDP over the working lives of graduates who emigrated in that time. SA was regarded as an immigration country until 1994, but has come an emigration country. Factors in the change include crime, expectations of economic growth and potential earnings and the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act. The researchers say emigration is a rational response to the act, which is aimed at making the workplace representative of the racial balance of the population as quickly as possible.

• SAPA (Pretoria 22/04) reports a representative of the UNHCR warned that the plight of Africa's six million refugees could worsen because of the Kosovo crisis. Donor countries may have to make a choice between the much-publicised refugee problem of Kosovo - which was close to home - and the "forgotten crisis" of Africa, UNHCR Africa director Albert-Alain Peters said. "You can hardly blame people for looking after their own problems," Peters said. "Unfortunately those people happen to be the same people we look to for resources for our refugees." He said the UNHCR would continue putting pressure on its donors not to forget "the unfortunate populations" of Africa. "The refugee situation in Africa is just as bad - if not worse - than that of Kosovo. In Kosovo they are receiving food, chocolates and cigarettes. In Africa, they live in the bush." The organisation was coping poorly with the refugee problem in Africa, which was delaying the pace of development in many host countries. African countries had done much to alleviate the continent's refugee problem by opening their borders to exiles. "They offer their infrastructure, schools, clinics and roads to refugees to the detriment of their own development." Peters said Africa had one of the largest refugee populations in the world.

• SAPA (Nelspruit 21/04) reports that commandos and police in Mpumalanga have arrested 1,694 "illegal immigrants" and other suspects since the beginning of the month. Offences included illegal border crossings, possession of unregistered guns, and assault, said army spokeswoman Lize Pienaar. "This was a result of deploying our commando units to work jointly with the police at our border with Mozambique, and all over the province," Pienaar said. Commandos in the Driefontein, Zonstraal, Dundonald and Volksrust areas confiscated 16 unlicensed guns, including pistols, rifles and pellet guns. Two tons of dagga were confiscated from Mozambicans who allegedly planned to smuggle it across the border to sell in South Africa. Five "illegal Mozambican immigrants" were arrested for allegedly beating up a taxi driver in Komatipoort. In the KwaNdebele area nine wanted criminals were arrested, six stolen vehicles and 13 illegal guns were recovered and ten suspects arrested, Pienaar said. The team also arrested 18 "illegal immigrants", recovered 54 rounds of ammunition, and confiscated 30 litres of beer from unlicensed sellers.

• Business Day (19/04) reports that the Heath special investigation unit has been authorised to probe claims that government officials and police have been involved in the wrongful admission of people, cars and goods through SA’s borders. A proclamation by President Nelson Mandela in the Government Gazette gives the unit, headed by Judge Willem Heath, the go-ahead to probe the allegations against officials of the Home Affairs department and the SA revenue service and the SA police Service. The proclamation said allegations had also been received that officials from these bodies failed "to act in terms of appropriate legislation against offenders at ports of entry" in the Northern Province. It was alleged that officials failed to collect and irregularly collected fees from people passing through the border and also wrongfully charged commission.

• Business Day (19/04) reports that in Cape Town, there is growing anxiety in SA’s Chinese community over the increasing number of illegal Chinese immigrants entering SA since full diplomatic ties were established with the People’s Republic of China. A senior member of the community said there was concern that illegal immigration to SA from the world’s most populous countries, and associated crimes such as prostitution and smuggling, were getting worse. He said South African Chinese and those granted citizenship were being blamed for the actions of the immigrants. This was particularly bad in the Western Cape where "illegal" Chinese immigrants are heavily involved in the smuggling of perlemoen. Another senior member of the Chinese community said the immigrants were pouring into SA "in their thousands" and that it cost SA a lot of money to repatriate them back to China. Inspector Johann Fourie of the South African Police Service aliens investigation unit said the tactics used by immigrants was to travel by air to SA via Johannesburg, but to list Maseru, Maseru, Mbabane or Maputo as their final destination. After reaching their destination, they buy false identity documents and passports and use these to enter South Africa by road.

• The Argus (16/04) reports that the opinion of immigration lawyers and experts as well as opposition MPs is that the department of Home Affairs runs a crippled administration that will be unable to implement the new White Paper on International Migration. Attorney Gary Eisenberg says the real problem facing South Africa’s efforts to streamline its immigration policy is not the legal framework but the administrative breakdown of the department. "Give us any rules you like, but run the department efficiently," he pleads. "The department operates in a crippled fashion and is one of the few with absolutely no credibility." His comments come after the release of the White Paper that acknowledges South Africa is losing the battle against "illegal immigration" and proposes a radical overhaul of the current system. The White Paper recognises the futility of attempting to police SA’s 7000-Km border and relying on deportations to repatriate SA’s 3m-5m "illegal aliens". It would take 25-30 years merely to deport existing "illegal immigrants". The upshot is a policy that aims to make it unattractive for people to reside in South Africa illegally by shifting law enforcement away from border control to community and workplace inspections. The White Paper relies on government agencies, employers and society in general to identify and report "illegal aliens", but so uneasy are the authors about the xenophobic backlash this could unleash that they propose a "10-year sunset clause" to this activity.

• Cape Times (16/04) reports that a representative of the Cape Town refugee forum said many of the estimated 14,000 refugees in Cape Town live in desperate conditions, without food or proper accommodation. The forum aims to help refugees in South Africa, improve their conditions and fight xenophobia. The forum along with other organisations lobbies the government to handle refugees more humanely. Some parts of the Refugee Act are unacceptable as they stand, says Willam Kerfoot of the Legal Resources Center. He explained that until recently, asylum seekers who arrived in Pietersburg and decided to move to Cape Town discovered they had to return to Pietersburg every three months to report to the authorities. However, the biggest battle the forum fights is that against xenophobia. The organisation has reported 22 murders of refugees since June last year, and there have been many cases of victimisation.

• SAPA (Johannesburg 14/04) reports that more resources should be allocated to South African borders to enable the South African National Defence Force to adequately control the influx of "illegal immigrants", the United Democratic Movement said on Wednesday. The government should also re-visit foreign policy with southern African countries, UDM acting secretary-general Annelize van Wyk said. "With so many South Africans unable to get a job of their own, controlling this influx of aliens should be a top government priority," she said. Van Wyk said foreign policy did not adequately cover the issue of "illegal immigration". She said the Southern African Development Community should re-examine its policies and ensure economic and democratic stability in the region so that job opportunities could be created. The UDM did not believe that the closure of borders offered a real solution to the problem. Economic development of the region would be a more realistic approach. The UDM further believed that "illegal immigrants" should be treated humanely, Van Wyk said.

• Prega Govender for the Sunday Times (11/04) reports that charges of fraud and corruption are being investigated against home affairs officials in centres around KwaZulu-Natal. This week, a woman claimed another official from Maritzburg accepted a bribe from a Taiwanese businessman to "marry" him to her without her knowledge. Judy Pillay, 26, was told she was "married" to her former employer, Deng Danong, when she went to the Maritzburg office to apply for a child grant. Pillay said when she confronted Danong he offered her R450 to keep silent. "Danong told me he had bribed a home affairs official with R800 to get him married. "The woman from home affairs whom he had given the money to visited me at home last month and offered me R2 700 to drop the case, but I declined the offer. Terry Kotze, acting regional representative for the Department of Home Affairs, said the official denied accepting money to process Danong's marriage certificate. "Danong's temporary residence permit expired in October last year and as far as we are concerned he is illegally in the country and can face deportation," Kotze said.

• Carol Paton reported for the Sunday Times (11/04) that employers will have to pay more to employ foreigners, and the creation of a new enforcement agency to inspect workplaces and schools for "illegal foreigners" has been proposed under radical new plans to discourage "illegal immigration". Under the new policy - proposed in the White Paper on International Migration published last week - teachers, doctors, nurses and any other public servants who come into contact with an "illegal immigrant" will be compelled to report them to the Immigration Service. Employers who want to hire foreigners will have to make an extra payment to the government, certify that they are not paying any foreigner less than a South African would get for the same job, and that they are complying with all legislation and agreements, including those reached between trade unions and employers in the industry. The measures outlined in the White Paper are designed to discourage foreigners (particularly those who are African and unskilled) from staying in South Africa for long periods and attempting to work illegally. It is hoped that, by making it more difficult for foreigners to find work, they will voluntarily repatriate themselves. At the same time, the proposals aim to make it easier to enter South Africa, providing three-month entry permits to anyone who can guarantee that they can and will leave - by providing a return ticket or refundable cash or credit card guarantees. One of the most controversial aspects of the policy, says Mario Ambrosini, an adviser to the Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, is that it will be possible to increase guarantees for people who come from countries from which the authorities would like to discourage migrants. The guarantees for visitors from other countries, such as those in Europe, could be made substantially less.

• David Greybe reports for Business Day (Cape Town 07/04) reports that the cabinet has given the go ahead for a new alien and immigration control policy which is more flexible in controlling people's entry into SA, but enforces stricter conditions of stay. At the heart of the proposed policy is a reliance on market forces to determine which skills are needed in SA. The white paper on international migration also recognises the many shortcomings of the present system, which is based on maximum government control over foreigners. Increasingly employers wanting to recruit foreigners, and foreigners wanting to enter SA, have expressed dissatisfaction over officials' arbitrary decisions. At the same time, government has been forced to recognise that deportation of illegal immigrants has not worked, as it has realised it cannot seal SA's borders. The policy paper therefore proposes a radical overhaul of the system. Unveiling the white paper last week, Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi said it represented "an earnest effort to provide answers to many problems associated with international migration". The product of a specialist task team's year of study, it recommends scrapping the discredited Immigration Selection Board in favour of "objective criteria" administered by a regulatory agency to be known as the Immigration Service. This is intended to enable businesses to recruit foreign workers on condition that they pay predetermined sums into a skills training fund for SA workers. Linked to this is a proposal for government not to interfere in determining how many foreigners, or what skills, are needed in the labour market. Market forces will determine that. The paper's drafters are confident that the new immigration scheme will lead to a radical reduction in the number of illegal immigrants found in work places. Officials who will, as a result of the implementation of the new policy, be relieved of "paperwork and border control" will be transferred to "community inspectorates" which will police workplaces, communities and schools. The thinking is that by targeting these areas, SA will eventually become unattractive to "illegal immigrants". The paper accepts the difficulty of forcibly repatriating the estimated 5million "illegal immigrants" in SA, encouraging "voluntary departure" instead. The paper proposes dividing foreigners into two broad camps: workers and the rest, which includes tourists and businessmen. While workers fall under community inspectorates, tourists and businessmen will be eligible for once-renewable three-month entry permits. The immigration service will be empowered to negotiate corporate visas, to be given to domestic companies for a specified number of foreign workers on the basis of skills needs and administered by the companies themselves. For example, if a company negotiates 20 foreign worker permits and pays a specified sum into the training fund, it can issue them as it wishes as long as it has no more than 20 foreign workers. It takes responsibility for the eventual repatriation of its foreign workers. In future visitors from countries specified in regulations will not be required to obtain visas beforehand if they provide proof at the port of entry of a return air ticket or other prescribed guarantees. Those entering across SA's land borders must possess visas or travel documents issued by an SA diplomatic mission. Alternatively, at all points of entry, people may enter on the basis of a credit card procedure. An official "will swipe any major credit card to request authorisation for a prescribed amount which will be debited or automatically refunded once the visitor exits the country... this amount will be equal to the per unit overall cost to find and deport an illegal alien".

• SAPA (Lusaka 07/04) reports that Zambia has appealed to the international community for immediate assistance to help the government cope with the daily flow of refugees fleeing fighting in the DRC. Zambian Home Affairs Minister Dr Katele Kalumba appealed to the international community to look into the plight of the refugees to avert what he described as disgusting human suffering. Kalumba described the refugee situation as desperate and predicted the number of refugees in Zambia would increase to 40,000 by the weekend, if refugees continued to stream into the country at a rate of between 400 and 500 people a day. Kalumba said he was appalled by the conditions in refugee camps which lacked basic requirements such as food, water, good sanitation, shelter, medicine or clothes. "The international community should come and help us because we have overstretched ourselves with the limited resources at our disposal," Kalumba said. A UNHCR information officer in Lusaka, Dominik Bartsch, conceded the refugees were streaming into Zambia at an unprecedented rate. "We shall soon resettle them at Mwenge permanent refugee settlement in Mporokoso district, some 200 kilometres south of Kaputa." He said the UNHRC had also appealed for more land to be allocated in Kawambwa to resettle refugees coming into Zambia from Pweto, where the Zambia Red Cross is presently caring for more than 6000 people. Lack of official food rations recently led to looting by refugees in Kaputa, causing concerns about security in the area. A situation was averted after emergency food rations arrived from Lusaka.

• SAPA-AP (Lusaka 07/04) reports that the government appealed to foreign donors for emergency food aid for more than 30,000 refugees who have fled into northeastern Zambia from fighting in neighboring Congo. Home Affairs Minister Katele Kalumba described the plight of Congolese fugitives as "desperate." He said 30,000 Congolese have sought refuge in the past two months and Zambia lacked resources to cater for them. Oluseyi Bucumi, UNHCR representative in Lusaka, said in a statement Wednesday poor roads in northern Zambia hampered relief operations and the moving of refugees further south. Earth moving vehicles were being deployed to clear the roads so refugees could be transported southward later this week. He said there were "isolated" incidents of refugees looting agricultural fields in Kaputa because food distribution was delayed." Reported tensions between Zambian villagers and refugees had been over dramatized, Bucumi said.

• Reuters (Gaborone 06/04) reports that Botswana granted asylum to more than 1,000 alleged Namibian separatists who fled across the border last year, straining relations between the two southern African neighbours. "They have nothing to fear by going back," a spokesman for Botswana President Festus Mogae told Reuters after the government gave asylum to 1,116 Namibian refugees. About 2,100 Namibians, alleged to be seeking the secession of a thin strip of land in north-eastern Namibia called Caprivi, crossed into northern Botswana last year, claiming to be fleeing political persecution. Under a UN refugee convention signed by Botswana, the Namibians cannot be sent home without their consent. In February, Botswana granted refuge to 15 leaders of the secessionist movement, a decision which outraged Namibia and prompted demands for their immediate extradition. Mogae's office said in a statement that the UNHCR had recommended to Botswana that Namibians be granted asylum in order that they may be classified as legitimate refugees and receive international aid. "The government of Botswana is continuing its relentless efforts to convince the Namibians remaining in Botswana that voluntary repatriation remains the most durable solution," the statement said. Under a UNHCR refugee convention signed by Botswana and Namibia, the refugees cannot be sent home without their consent. Mogae's spokesman said asylum applications for the remaining 1,000 Namibians living in Botswana's Dukwe Refugee Camp were still being processed.

• The Star (03/04) reports that according to the White Paper on international migration, a special security service should be set up to curtail "illegal immigration". Launching the paper, Minister Buthelezi said the move might be the solution to the country’s migration problems. "Illegal aliens" compete for resources with millions of South Africans living in poverty, the White Paper claims. Many of them are involved in crime, weakening the state by corrupting officials and fraudulently acquiring documents. "The best way to prevent further illegal immigration is to create in South Africa an environment which does not offer them the opportunities for employment and free available public service which they cannot find in their own countries". Members of the proposed alien security services should be trained to conduct investigations, and the body should have its own intelligence unit. Other proposals in the document include the creation of an immigration court, and minimum mandatory penalties for those employing and harbouring "illegal aliens". For foreigners living in the country, the paper provides for measures to discourage their employment. People to be barred from South Africa include those with infectious diseases or criminal records, citizens of certain countries, those previously deported and members of criminals or terrorist organisations.

• SAPA (Pretoria 01/04) reports that a special security service should be set up to curtail "illegal immigration", according to the White Paper on International Migration released in Pretoria on Thursday. It also moots separate detention facilities for illegal aliens, and provides for such individuals to be held in custody for up to 48 hours without a warrant. Outlining the scope of South Africa's problems with "illegal immigrants", the document says it would take at least 30 years to repatriate those already in the country. "Illegal aliens" compete for scarce resources and jobs with millions of South Africans living in poverty, the paper says. A considerable percentage of them are involved in crime, weakening the state and its institutions by corrupting officials and fraudulently acquiring documents. "The best way to prevent further illegal immigration is to create in South Africa an environment which does not offer them the opportunities of employment and free available public services which they cannot find in their countries of origin." Other proposals in the document included the creation of an immigration court, and minimum mandatory penalties for those employing and harbouring "illegal aliens". The paper favours leniency for the non-citizen spouses of South Africans, saying they should be granted permanent residence permits. This should apply to civil and customary marriages, common law marriages and long-term homosexual relationships. People to be barred from the country include those with infectious diseases or criminal records, citizens of certain countries, those previously deported, and members of criminal or terrorist organisations.

Updated June 07, 1999