Posted on 07/21/2007 7:37:35 PM PDT by blam
They risk electrocution to escape Zimbabwe
By Stephen Bevan in Musina, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:56pm BST 21/07/2007
Like the thousands of others who trekked across the border this month, Kudakwashe Vandira brought nothing but the clothes he was wearing and the vague hope of a better life.
A man struggles beneath a barbed wire fence, one of three border barriers meant to stop illegal crossings from Zimbabwe to South Africa
What little spare cash he had saved up had been stolen by the guma guma - the gangsters who prey on desperate Zimbabweans as they try to flee illegally into South Africa.
"We paid someone 100 South African rand (£7) to take us from the Zimbabwean side to the South African side, but then we met robbers and they took all our money," said Mr Vandira, 20, a jobless builder who was seeking work to support his elderly mother back home.
"They had a pistol and clubs and they beat my friend, so his tooth has been knocked loose. Yes, it's a risk but it is better than being in Zimbabwe."
Grim stories like Mr Vandira's are now all too common in Musina, a former mining town that is the first place refugees reach after the 12-hour trudge from the border. While most "illegals" then head on to Johannesburg and other big cities, many of the most destitute remain in Musina, stranded because they lack the price of the fare.
Most either camp out in the bush or live in squats on the edge of townships, unable to earn a living legally, where they are blamed for a massive wave of petty crime and theft. Unless they get deported by the border police, however, none ever contemplate going back.
Instead, with Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe's presidency slipping ever deeper into economic crisis - characterised by 4,500 per cent inflation and growing shortages of basic foods and fuel - the flow of migrants has grown from a trickle to a flood.
So severe is the problem that the United Nations and South African government have begun drawing up new contingency plans for a sudden mass exodus of people over the border. The Sunday Telegraph understands that the blueprint includes provisions for setting up a refugee camp in Musina, and giving Zimbabweans official refugee status for the first time.
The issue is highly sensitive for the South African government, as according refugee status to immigrants would give them an automatic right to stay in the country. Crucially, it would also be an explicit admission that the situation in Zimbabwe had reached crisis point, something that Thabo Mbeki's ANC-led administration has long refused to admit.
Last week, the Zimbabwean government was forced to back down from its disastrous campaign to force businesses to slash their prices by half, after a wave of panic-buying across the country cleared the shelves of every supermarket, and companies were driven close to bankruptcy.
But with Zimbabwe suffering a severe drought, and the World Food Programme now raising its estimate of the number of people there needing aid from 300,000 to one million, the proportion fleeing is sure to grow.
Although there are no reliable figures for the number of people crossing the border illegally, anecdotal evidence suggests that they are coming in their hundreds, if not thousands, every day. One recent report suggested that South African border police were arresting and deporting 500 daily. An estimated three million Zimbabweans - nearly a quarter of the population - are thought to be already resident in South Africa.
Once a quiet backwater, Musina now has the feel of a gold rush town as local businesses grow rich on the back of trade with the people of its increasingly desperate neighbour. Zimbabweans with the correct paperwork cross the border every day to buy staples such as bread and fuel, which are either unavailable at home or cost many times the price. A new four-lane highway being built between Musina and the border crossing is testament to the flourishing trade along the route.
The profile of those coming over is changing, however, according to Hannes Nel, whose fruit farm is near the border. "Before, it was men looking for work," he said. "Now it's family groups, women with children, even old people. It's all sorts."
Professional hunters - a lucrative business in this sparsely populated area of thick bush, rolling hills and dramatic rock outcrops - and local farmers complain that the "illegals" cut their fences, destroy their snares, break pipes for water and are also responsible for burglaries and murders. The presence of so many clearly desperate people is also blamed for frightening away foreign tourists.
Despite the problems, official efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants seem half-hearted on either side. The border is marked by three impressive-looking fences, including an electric one in the middle, but it is easily evaded by pushing sticks under it until wires touch and it short-circuits.
No border guards patrol the Zimbabwean side, while there are widespread reports of illegal immigrants paying South African soldiers and police to look the other way as they cross.
Nor, despite dramatic reports of immigrants wading through fast-flowing waters dodging crocodiles and hippos, is the mighty Limpopo river, along which the border runs, any real barrier. For 10 months of the year the Limpopo is virtually dry, and all the immigrants have to do is walk across its sandy bed.
Joe Nyati, 18, another Zimbabwean illegal immigrant, told how he was caught by South African police last month as he crossed the border after dark, for the first time. After spending the night in a former barracks which has been converted into a holding centre, he was deported back to Zimbabwe the next day.
"The same night I crossed again," he said. "I was coming across the river at night with my friend when the guma guma attacked us. There were 15 of them, all young men, they had guns and knives.
"They took everything except my underwear. But after they had gone, we carried on to the fence and climbed over."
Now Mr Nyati works illegally in Musina as a garden boy, earning 200 rand (£14) a month. It is a telling indication of just how bad things are in Zimbabwe that he should be prepared to take such risks for so little reward.
"I finished school two years ago but there was no work," he said. "It's easy to stay here and if they catch me and deport me, I'll just come back the same day."
The call to set up refugee camps locally has already been taken up by South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance party. In a letter to the home affairs minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the party's deputy home affairs spokesman, Les Labuschagne, said: "Refugee camps would be the only way to make sure that these people are adequately housed and fed until they are able to return to Zimbabwe."
The South African government, apparently reluctant to acknowledge the problems caused by Zimbabwe's economic freefall, has dismissed the Democratic Alliance party's letter as "nothing but cheap political point scoring".
A home affairs ministry spokesman said: "Refugees are supposed to be integrated into our communities and not kept in camps as the DA proposes." He added that such measures would only be introduced in the event of a major calamity.
Jack Redden, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in South Africa, confirmed, however, that "revisions" were under way to existing contingency plans, drawn up in conjunction with the South African government, in case of a major refugee crisis.
He refused to say what the plan said about setting up refugee camps, but the head of the local municipality, Abram Luruli, confirmed a site had already been identified on a disused army base, six miles from Musina.
For some of those leaving Zimbabwe, such camps will come too late. Ennie Lelushi runs the Child Resource Centre, a day care facility for orphans and vulnerable children on Musina's outskirts. Almost half the 479 children she has on her books are Zimbabwean, some of them brought in by guma guma who double as people traffickers.
"If you don't have the money to pay them, they'll do bad things to you," she said. "One boy told us that when he came over the border, he was with a mother and her baby. The guma guma said the child would cry and give them away, so they took it, killed it and threw it in the river."
Zim Ping.
Life in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) was never great, but under Robert Mugabe, it’s become a cesspool of poverty, corruption, and violence.
They’ll be stripping the wire from those border fences at night and selling it as scrap metal the next day soon.
There’s easily more than $30 per day available to the refugees that way.
Should be interesting to read some of the replies from the build the the wall with gun towers and minefields crowd on FR.
africawinsagain...
If you will permit me :
Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny,
And in this judgement there is no partiality.
So arm in arms, with arms, we’ll fight this little struggle,
‘Cause that’s the only way we can overcome our little trouble.
Brother, you’re right, you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We gon’ fight (we gon’ fight), we’ll have to fight (we gon’ fight),
We gonna fight (we gon’ fight), fight for our rights!
Natty Dread it in-a (Zimbabwe);
Set it up in (Zimbabwe);
Mash it up-a in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate (Zimbabwe), yeah.
No more internal power struggle;
We come together to overcome the little trouble.
Soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionary,
‘Cause I don’t want my people to be contrary.
And, brother, you’re right, you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), we gonna fight (we gon’ fight)
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), fighting for our rights!
Mash it up in-a (Zimbabwe);
Natty trash it in-a (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
I’n’I a-liberate Zimbabwe.
(Brother, you’re right,) you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We gon’ fight (we gon’ fight), we’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight),
We gonna fight (we gon’ fight), fighting for our rights!
To divide and rule could only tear us apart;
In everyman chest, mm - there beats a heart.
So soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries;
And I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.
Brother, you’re right, you’re right,
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), we gonna fight (we gon’ fight),
We’ll ‘ave to fight (we gon’ fight), fighting for our rights!
Natty trash it in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Mash it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Set it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Natty dub it in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe).
Set it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);
Every man got a right to decide his own destiny.
So...ghost of Bob Marley....how do you like your little Zimbabwe African freedom example now days ?
Now that the evil Rhodesian white devils are gone?
Lovely little ganjatopia isn’t it?
Just what you envisioned in your song....
as me: the Selous Scouts and the RLI should have never quit!
damn liberal Brits strike again . And look at their lovely little corner of the world .
What go around come around , eh? jah ...
Are you saying people risking being murdered by their nation of origin (Zimbabwe) as they escape is the moral equivalence of a nation (Mexico) who gives it’s people comic books with instructions on how to illegally enter the United States?
You don’t know the true meaning of the word “refugee” do you.
Next you’ll be telling us how the fence that SHOULD be on our southern border is the same as the Berlin wall.
Those darned African droughts again. The white devil farmers must have taken their rain machines with them when they were forced off their farms.
You don’t know the true meaning of the word “refugee” do you.
Next you’ll be telling us how the fence that SHOULD be on our southern border is the same as the Berlin wall.
Uh no, this situation shows that leftist marxist economics does not work and building walls will not stop the flow of people seeking a better life in a free market economy.
President Reagan knew this, President Bush knows this, the ignorant ones are the mirror image of marxist economics, the buchanan/tancredoites.
I actually do think conditions in Northern Mexico are pretty bad. Northern Mexico is basically controlled by drug lords.
It is not as bad as Zimbabwe but the ambivalence of the border bots deeply annoys me.
Uh no, this situation shows that leftist marxist economics does not work and building walls will not stop the flow of people seeking a better life in a free market economy.
So, if you were “King” what would you do concerning the problem of Illegal Immigrants entering the United States?
I wouldn't have a fetish of a guy named Jose trying to make an honest living mowing lawns or washing dishes, instead I would promote free market economics in Latin America.
There is such poverty, despair and hunger in Zimbabwe, I doubt if the country has resources for electric fences.
On the other hand, South Africa could afford something like that -- but why would they need it since they do not acknowledge that Zimbabwe has any problems...
You aren't being fair. Jimmah Carter and the American voters deserve half the credit for the successes in Zim.
this is true...but primarily it was Brit pressure against
Brit expat Rhodesians that caused to fall of the most productive and egalitarian country Africa has ever known.
Yea, that NAFTA sure cut down on the number of illegal invaders, didn't it.
Howdy Dane. Keep these criminal invasion threads bumped to the top!
Soon even that won’t be a threat as Zimbabwe won’t be able to pay the electric bill anymore.
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