Instability Spreads As Thousands Flee From Zimbabwe

The effects of Robert Mugabe's regime are forcing thousands of people to seek sanctuary in neighbouring countries - a situation that is threatening to destabalise the whole region, writes Tim Butcher in Gabrone.

Less than a mile from the mirror-panelled banks and high-rise offices of Botswana's richest firms, penniless Zimbabweans gather on dusty street corners begging for work.

Unregistered, unkempt and unlawful in a foreign land, the desperate men whisper "Piece work, piece work" sotto voce, meaning "odd job" to any passer-by.

If you are brave enough to stop your car at what appears to be an empty junction, a mini-stampede erupts as Zimbabweans surge towards the vehicle, hands flapping for car door handles in an unseemly scrum to be first in line.

Malnourished and haggard, the men try anything to convince would-be employers. Some brandish O-level certificates as proof that they passed through Zimbabwe's once respected but now barely functioning education system.

Others show references from employers back in Zimbabwe long closed down or even character references from the country's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, to indicate that they are not tainted by association with President Robert Mugabe's regime.

All the documents have to be retrieved from a carefully secreted position - tucked in a sock or hidden behind a belt. To be found with such paperwork by the police is grounds for the bearer to be kicked out of Botswana as an illegal.

"I have been coming across the border regularly for two years now," said 24-year-old Mqondisi from Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo.

"We get a few days' permission to be here, but we all stay to look for work because a little bit of money here in Botswana is more than we can hope for in Zimbabwe. The police catch us and stick us in the trucks that take us back over the border, but after a few days we come back."

The problems caused to southern Africa by the Mugabe regime's systematic destruction of the economy and the democratic system are causing worsening trouble.

An estimated three million Zimbabweans are seeking sanctuary in neighbouring South Africa, while 400,000 have gone to Mozambique. Anything from 10 to 20 per cent of the Zimbabwean population have left their homes to seek job security and wages in neighbouring lands.

Trains, buses and lorries have been used by the South African authorities to deport 498,321 since the crisis began in 2000, according to official figures, although it is believed that only one in six illegal immigrants is caught.

Even desperately poor Mozambique is now attracting Zimbabweans. Thousands have streamed over the mountainous eastern border into Manica province, hoping to be paid in any currency other than the Zimbabwean dollar.

Ironically, many black Zimbabweans are leaving for Mozambique to work on farms being run by the same white farmers kicked off their land by Mr Mugabe.

Zimbabwe may hate the white farmer, but scores have been welcomed into Mozambique by the authorities keen to lure agricultural specialists, especially in the tobacco sector.

Botswana, too, has also been inundated. A rare African economic success story, it is now under threat from hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. It is dramatic proof of the regional chaos caused by Mr Mugabe's chaotic rule.

With a tiny population of only 1.7 million, Botswana faces being overwhelmed by those fleeing the economic chaos, political violence and spiralling lawlessness of Zimbabwe, which has a population more than eight times greater.

The flood has led inexorably to tension, with Botswanans blaming the arrivals for a surge in petty crime and for stealing jobs. Local police have been accused of beating the arrivals and other human rights abuses.

Spencer Mogapi, editor of the independent Botswana Gazette, said: "If we had 10,000 illegal Zimbabweans here we would not be able to cope because we are so small.

"But our government says officially that there are 60,000 here already and most people believe the real number to be much more than that."

The suburb of White City in the Botswanan capital, Gaborone, offers clear proof of the scale of the problem. As the crisis in Zimbabwe has worsened, the illegal immigrant situation in Botswana has become steadily worse, although the secretive government of President Festus Mogae rarely speaks publicly about the problem.

He is understood to be concerned about the influx, which threatens the economic and social stability of his small country, and as a result he is believed to be one of Mr Mugabe's fiercest regional critics.

A new detention centre for illegal immigrants has recently been built near Botswana's border with Zimbabwe, and Botswana is erecting an electrified fence along the border to stop illegal immigrants and diseased cattle.

There was no response from the president's spokesman after an approach by The Telegraph, and a western television crew was asked to leave the country recently after attempting to film a report on the issue.

Don McKinnon, secretary general of the Commonwealth, discussed the regional fall-out from Mr Mugabe's economic mismanagement recently and let slip that Botswana might have as many as 200,000 illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe.

Alfred Dube, Botswana's ambassador at the United Nations, hinted at the threat of vigilantism against illegal Zimbabwean immigrants who are blamed for everything from petty crime to spreading Aids.

"We are concerned about what is going on," said the ambassador. "It is very unfortunate that we have our houses being burgled every day and our children being harassed. We understand why our people are saying Zimbabweans must go."

Back in Gaborone, Mr Mogapi said death provided the starkest proof of the scale of the problem. "There are so many of them that when they die they are filling up our mortuaries for days as their families do not have the means to come to collect them," he said.

"The authorities here have to bury them in unmarked graves. It is a very sad situation."

Ironically, many black Zimbabweans are leaving for Mozambique to work on farms being run by the same white farmers kicked off their land by Mr Mugabe.

It isn't irony at all - unless they were "war veterans" or other Mugabe sympathizers they got kicked off too. Race was never more than a pretext anyway - many of these people worked for or with the white farmers, and hard as it may be for the politically tendentious to grasp, they often actually liked one another.

This was never black versus white, it was thugs and thieves versus victims of all races. Now the thugs and thieves have everything they could confiscate...only they can't seem to grow anything with it.

Very well put.

The kleptocrats in Zimbabwe will soon find that they are the rulers of Country Zero, not worth one US$

Very, very sad.

At one time it was Malawians and Mozambicans that flocked to Zimbabwe, and were the haggard beggars on their streets. Botswana may be an economic success story, but it has the world's highest rate of HIV infection among adults - 30-40%

On an aside, I remember reading that the US has some kind of military contingent in Botswana (not the Embassy Marines). I guess we need to establish a jumping off place somewhere in Africa, if only to evacuate Embassy folks in that region.

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