Migration News - June 1999

June 1999

• The Financial Mail (25/06) reports that the concept of “brain drain” is not unique to SA. “Since the sixties, the flow of highly educated people has formed part of the debate between the predominantly rich, industrialized Northern Hemisphere countries and the less fluent south. The implications are far-reaching. For one thing, investment in education for a developing country may not lead to faster economic growth if a large number of people are leaving the country. And efforts to reduce skills shortages through better educational opportunities may be largely futile unless measures are taken to offset existing incentives for highly educated people to emigrate” say the International Monetary Fund’s Enrica Detragiache and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ William Carrington. The drain from Africa is small, but highly skilled. Of 128,000 migrants, 95,000 were classified as “highly educated”. The biggest drain from Africa to the US is from Egypt, Ghana and South Africa, with more than 60% of immigrants from those countries having a tertiary education. According to the study, South Africa has lost almost 25% of its graduates to the US.

• Xinhua news agency (Dar Es Salaam, 24/06) reports that Tanzania's immigration authorities will reform procedures in issuing passports in a move to control "illegal immigrants", a senior immigration official said here Thursday. Director of the Tanzanian immigration services, Herbert Chilambo, told reporters in Dar es salaam that from the beginning of next month affidavits will have to be obtained from the area of birth of a person applying for a passport. Chilambo said the affidavits will have to be attained with a confirmation letter from an immigration official of the district or region where the person was born, before a request for passport is considered. The procedure will also be applicable to birth certificates from the registrar of births and deaths, said the director. He warned "illegal immigrants" and some members of the public not to cheat the government by assisting certain people in obtaining the passports fraudulently, otherwise strong legal actions will be taken against the practices. The immigration services chief also urged the general public to help the government reveal people who work and live in the country illegally. Meanwhile, a new booklet entitled "Tanzania and her foreign guests" which clarifies on procedures involved in issuing passports has been inaugurated. The objective of the booklet is to lighten people's complaints over immigration officials or middlemen and solve problem of corruption, Chilambo said.

• SAPA (Durban 24/06) reports that at least 152 “illegal immigrants” were arrested and several stolen items were recovered in northern KwaZulu-Natal during a five-day operation conducted by the border police and the SA National Defence Force from last Friday. Police spokesman Director Bala Naidoo on Thursday said the operation and road blocks were conducted in the Nkonkoni, Lower Mkuze and Ubombo areas. Police recovered four stolen vehicles, 12 cycads and 34 bales of clothing. They also registered 187 cases of traffic violations. Naidoo said operations like that would again take place in future to prevent “illegal immigrants” and firearms from entering the country.

• Xinhua (Harare, 21/06) reports that South Africa has deported about 18,000 Zimbabweans, who are said to have illegally settled in the country this year, Zimbabwe's police said. Many Zimbabweans were crossing the border illegally to South Africa in search of jobs while other's continued their stay well after the expiry of their permits, the Daily Herald reported Monday. Inspector Newton Mutomba in an interview told the Herald Sunday, "we have received 17,929 Zimbabweans deported from South Africa from January to June 16 this year." He said the number of deported Zimbabweans from South Africa has already surpassed that in the whole year of 1988, which was about 14,000. Most of the deportees were caught on their way to Johannesburg to seek employment. The Herald also reported that about 3,000 Zimbabweans have so far died in South Africa this year, most of them at the hands of criminals.

• SAPA (Johannesburg 20/06) reports that the new Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Penuell Maduna says he identifies with the plight of refugees having been a refugee himself for ten years. Maduna said “South Africans have an obligation as a country to look after refugees. It is important for our people to share their bit with refugees. They are here out of sheer desperation. They need our assistance. I was a refugee from 1980 to 1990 when I was in exile seeking refuge in many African countries, so I know how it feels." He said South Africans needed to realize that refugees were "not here to steal their jobs". "They don't want to be here. They were forced to come here because of political problems in their countries." But Mengesha Kebede of the UNHCR in South Africa, said the most serious challenge facing Africa was that of "hospitality fatigue" by refugee hosting countries. Kebede said: "Those countries who have hosted refugees for a long time are experiencing strains caused by resource limitations in meeting the needs of destitute people. Refugees are created because of instability, conflict and absence of respect for human rights and the rule of law. Unfortunately the refugee phenomenon will remain with us until humanity collectively addresses the root causes of what creates the movement in the first place."

• Sunday Times (20/06) reports that thousands of foreign asylum-seekers given seven days to leave South Africa after officials canceled their applications for asylum have won a reprieve. Faced with urgent court action, Department of Home Affairs officials have agreed to withdraw the exit notices and reinstate the application. However, lawyers acting for several Senegalese-asylum seekers, who brought the legal challenge, said they feared that many of the others affected by the cancellation and subsequent reprieve – said to be 3,000 and 4,000 people – may not hear that they do not have to leave South Africa.

• SAFM Radio Network (Johannesburg, 17/06) reports that the Mozambican police say South Africa continues to abuse “illegal Mozambican immigrants” during their repatriation despite repeated protests. The police commander at the border post of Ressano Garcia, Simone Jonas, says that a South African train arrives at the town every Thursday with dozens of Mozambicans, many of them in poor health. He says a group of about 40 Mozambicans were dumped at the border last week and many complained of alleged maltreatment in police custody, including severe beatings. Those repatriated also claimed that some of their companions had been severely assaulted by members of the South African police and thrown out of moving trains. Jonas also says South Africa nationals suffering from mental problems are dumped at Ressano Garcia with the repatriated Mozambicans.

• City Press (13/06) reports that the crisis facing South Africa’s more than seven million refugees and displaced people should not be ignored as the world focuses its attention on the 850,000 refugees displaced by the Kosovo crisis, says the UNHCR deputy regional representative Mengesha Kebede. Kebede said while UNHCR encouraged and supported the large number of South Africans that had contacted the UNHCR’s Pretoria office to offer to adopt refugee children from Kosovo, he could not explain why no similar gestures were being made to assist equally needy refugees closer to home. “As we celebrate Africa Refugee Day on 20 June and the 30th anniversary of the 1969 Organization of African Unity Refugee Convention, it is an invitation for South Africans to take time to find out more about refugees and to remind citizens that refugees in South Africa do not enjoy the legal and physical protection that South Africans take for granted.” He said the level of xenophobia in South Africa posed a grave danger to refugees in countries of asylum. “The word ‘kwerekwere’ is bandied about and myths about foreigners taking South African’s jobs leaving them open to the attack. In order to survive, refugees need to make a living. No distinction is made between refugees and other legal or illegal foreigners. In the past three years, 53,000 asylum seekers have applied for refugee status in South Africa. Of these, 22,000 applications have not as yet been processed while 8,200 asylum seekers have been granted refugee status.

• City Press (13/06) reports “a journey by train” is normally a pleasant topic for primary school essays – for Mozambican “illegal immigrants” it is a nightmare. The immigrants transported back to the motherland every month claim they are treated harshly and abusively by South African police on the trains. In the latest incident, 40 immigrants claim they were assaulted and robbed on the train. Home Affairs officials normally escort the train, but the officials say they are helpless and cannot protect immigrants from abuse. Home Affairs spokesperson Manafe Makwela said that it was not his department’s duty to see to it that “illegal immigrants” were protected on the train. Captain Mabunda of the Komatipoort police station confirmed that charges of assault and robbery had been laid by immigrants against the police. City Press found 37 of the “illegal immigrants” being held in a small cell with no toilet, no blankets and no decent food. Immigrants, unhappy with conditions at the police station, want to drop the charges and be released. They fear that some of them may get ill and die.

• SAPA (Maseru 08/06) reports that the government will consider reducing permit fees for Basotho who are schooling in South Africa if Lesotho supplies the number of learners currently in the country said visiting South African Education Minister Sibusiso Bhengu. Bhengu told his Lesotho counterpart that the documentation should be passed on as an urgent matter to the Southern African Development Community's human resources development committee. The committee meets in Swaziland on June 21. It was estimated that about 4,000 learners are schooling in South Africa and there could many more who slipped into the country “illegally” because of high study permit fees. A SAPA correspondent reported that it appeared most learners were abusing the six-months travel concession between the two countries. These learners were largely registered in commercial schools or technikons. Bhengu said the documentation should include the statistics of Basotho learners in South Africa as well as the problems they were facing obtaining study permits. He said an SADC protocol on education adopted by all countries in the region declared that fees paid by the students from the region should be on par with those paid by locals. The protocol also allowed for a five percent quota of student intake. The protocol was ratified by the South African Parliament on March, Bhengu said. Co-operation in various educational fields, including teacher development, higher education and curriculum development, was agreed upon during a meeting between Bhengu and his counterpart.

• Business Day (07/06) reports that several foreign chambers of commerce plan to protest to the incoming Home Affairs minister about the growing number of highly skilled expatriates who are being refused permits to work in South Africa. Chamber spokesperson representing some of SA’s largest foreign investors, including US, European, Dutch and German companies, say they have been inundated with complaints from member companies across a broad spectrum of industries following Home Affairs department’s refusal to grant visas to foreign recruits. “We are not talking of people who can be replaced by South Africans,” said German spokesperson. “In many cases we are talking of vital staff without whom new ventures simply cannot take off. Until now we have managed the situation on an ad hoc basis. But there are simply too many complaints to do it that way. We have to sit down with Home Affairs to iron out whatever systematic problems there may be. Home Affairs spokesperson Hennie Meyer said “Our policy is to grant foreigners work permits only when there are no South Africans to do the same job, but we are obviously very sensitive to the needs of foreign investors. We always get advice from the South Africa’s commercial chambers before making a crucial decision.”

• The Cape Times (03/06) reports that the exodus of local dentists to the United Kingdom is picking up pace, with hundreds of them accepting lucrative offers. Large corporate dental firms such as Dr. James Hull and Associates, Whitecross Dental Care and Integrated Dental Housing, are competing to employ South Africans. This year, 107 South African dentists joined Hull’s company following a “massive” recruitment in all the major cities of South Africa. Seventeen dentists arrived in Britain in March, 60 arrived during the past two months and at least another 30 will pack their bags and join the firm later this year. Hull, whose firm owns more than 50 practices in the UK, told The Probe that the response in Cape Town was so overwhelming that he had held a second presentation in the city. The British General Dental Council said more South African dentists than any other nationality immigrated to Britain last year – 200.

• The Argus (01/06) reports that a French Legionnaire who deserted and fled to South Africa five years ago has been arrested in Cape Town after being declared an “illegal immigrant”. Home Affairs officials are expected to charge a security firm for employing the Romanian after his temporary residency and work permit lapsed. If convicted, the company would be liable for the man’s repatriation cost, said Home Affairs. When police raided Julian Posa’s room last Wednesday they found R150,000 in a safe and a seemingly valid South African license for his Glock pistol. A policeman said that under certain conditions foreigners living temporarily in South Africa could obtain a temporary gun permit. Home Affairs told Posa that his bid for political asylum had been turned down. He was about to be deported when the special Task Force investigator Piet Viljoen asked for a month’s grace to question him about the bombing in the Waterfront and elsewhere in the Cape Peninsula. On January 15, police told the Immigration Department Mr. Posa had “failed to co-operate” and could be deported. Mr. Posa has since vanished.

• The Sowetan (01/06) reports that “illegal immigrants” in South Africa were the latest victims of political parties’ scramble to attract votes in the run up to the elections. In an unlikely show of alliance politics, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Federal Alliance (FA), the New National Party (NNP) and the United Democratic Movement (UDM), raised the spectre of negative impact that foreigners are assumed to have on South Africa’s economy and society. The election manifestos of the UDM and the FA explicitly advocated stricter immigration controls. Images of the NNP leader walking along South Africa’s borders and promising to seal them were flashed across television screens. This branding of foreigners as scapegoats for our social ills, and the promise of stricter immigration controls was politically expedient, disingenuous and irresponsible, it was argued. This could encourage xenophobia among South Africans, which could escalate into violence against foreigners, with socially destabilizing domestic consequences. They could also create diplomatic tension within the region. Unfulfilled expectations of the implementation of more stringent immigration policies could further frustrate citizens, thus increasing resentment against foreigners. Research conducted by the Center for Policy Studies suggests that current immigration policies are unenforceable and therefore result in an enormous waste of financial, institutional and human resources.

Updated July 23, 1999