Posted on 12/15/2002 2:43:42 AM PST by Clive
An increase in the flow of refugees from Zimbabwe is having a destabilising effect on Limpopo province: policing services are under such pressure that farmers are starting to train their own security guards.
Violent types of crime are on the rise in towns that had never experienced them before.
Government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that increasing numbers of both legal and illegal Zimbabweans were entering South Africa.
Taxi drivers in Musina and shopkeepers in Thohoyandou agreed, but the official sources were loath to blame increasing crime figures on Zimbabwean refugees. Ronel Otto, the police spokesperson, said there were no real statistics available to suggest Zimbabweans were responsible for crimes. She said crime was actually on the decline in Limpopo, but was unable to supply figures.
Hijackings
occurred this year for the first time In Louis Trichardt, the first large town on the road from Zimbabwe, sources said hijackings occurred this year for the first time: seven in the past three months. In the past month 21 vehicles had been stolen.
The sources said the increasing refugee flows were sapping police resources to such an extent that South African crime syndicates had greater "freedom of movement" in Limpopo towns. Whereas theft was limited in the past to as many items as an individual could carry away on foot, the new trend was for houses to be "cleaned out" by syndicates.
While the sources said they had no evidence local syndicates were employing Zimbabweans to do the dirty work, shopkeepers in Thohoyandou claimed they were being used in this way because they could not easily be traced in the city.
The sources said 84 percent of people caught without legal documents at roadblocks in November were Zimbabweans. In one week up to 1 000 illegal aliens could be caught at such roadblocks in Limpopo.
When asked what percentage of Zimbabweans in South Africa were illegal, Otto said she could not comment.
They had little
respect for authority because of misrule in their home country The Zimbabweans use connections with local clansmen and the infrequently travelled back-roads of the Venda region to find their way to the cities of the Witwatersrand. Near the larger towns such as Polokwane they sleep in bushes from 10pm to 4am, or hide on unoccupied farms.
The sources said the trend was for increasing numbers of Zimbabwean youths, even children, to enter South Africa illegally. Most were "born frees", with birthdates from after independence in 1980. They had little respect for authority because of misrule in their home country, and were "just the right generation" for crime.
Whereas in the past farmers could cope with the odd theft of products from fields and barns, the volume has got out of hand in the past year. A new, severely damaging trend is to steal any aluminium equipment - including expensive irrigation pipes and wheels - to sell to smelters where they are turned into pots and kitchen utensils.
In the villages around Thohoyandou the traditional cast-iron three-legged pot has been replaced by a shiny, lightweight aluminium version. Aluminium kitchenware is found everywhere.
So threatened do farmers feel that agricultural associations have begun their own programmes to train security guards. The programmes have a "home and hearth" focus because patrols covering fields as well would be too expensive. The farmers, say the sources, have given up on the idea of minimising theft of produce in order to protect their profit margins, and are now concerned mainly with personal security.
Asked about the use of the army, the sources said the commando system, in which local volunteers of all races and sexes are used, was the last bulwark against a total collapse of policing services. But new regulations exposing individual members to legal action had severely curtailed the system's effectiveness, and defence force budgets for "regional protection" had declined sharply.
Otto said the defence force "does not really have the manpower anymore to assist the police". But the air force was still being used in police operations.
The sources said farmers were confused over the government's stand on Zimbabwe, and saw it as supporting the violent transfer of land to black people.
In this context they were not willing to stay on as farm managers for new black owners acquiring their land in accordance with the land reform programme.
The refugee flows are also affecting the game industry. Because so many farm animals are smuggled in from Zimbabwe, certificates for infectious diseases are required before game farmers are allowed to sell animals. Because of this, conservation experts say, animals are dying of thirst and hunger because they are not being bought by buyers, who go elsewhere where there is less red tape. - Independent Foreign Service
I expect that, in a short time, the feeding camps will be located in South Africa, Botswana, and Mozambique, given that Mugabe and friends insist on limiting food aid to the politically correct.
Only then, outside of Zimbabwe, will we see the pictures and film of the starving.
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