Posted on 01/31/2008 7:11:19 PM PST by blam
Police raid shelter for Zimbabwean refugees
By Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg
Last Updated: 12:14am GMT 01/02/2008
Hundreds of Zimbabwean immigrants have been rounded up for deportation from South Africa when authorities raided a church that has become a sanctuary for those fleeing Robert Mugabe's regime.
Normally the floors, staircases and rooms of the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg, and the pavement outside, are packed with around 1,600 Zimbabweans who have travelled for days, often without food, to find safety.
Yesterday morning it was almost deserted, except for children playing in a basement nursery, after squads of police descended on the premises during the night and removed the residents. Those with papers were being allowed out of custody after processing, but hundreds more were expected to be sent back to Zimbabwe.
South Africa has an ambivalent attitude towards refugees from Zimbabwe. Estimates of those who have gone south across the Limpopo range from one to three million, but asylum is hard to obtain, many are exploited, and immigrants are blamed for the country's sky-high crime rate.
There has been speculation that political motives were behind the raid, and that despite Mr Mugabe's misrule some South African officials want to believe that the situation in Zimbabwe has normalised with elections being called for March.
"I looked out of my window and people were running like you can't imagine, as if they were running for their lives," said Bishop Paul Verryn, who is based at the church.
"They were particularly aggressive, they broke doors and they broke a window in the church, they hit people. I was manhandled and money has gone missing from my office.
"I don't understand the reasons for violating and abusing the building. But we can fix windows and we can fix doors; the most serious violation is of the people - that's the violation, that's the desecration, that's the blasphemy.
"These people are desperate, people sometimes come here who have not eaten for three or four days, I have had grown men weeping in my office. I have had people completely emasculated by the conditions of their lives.
"They wouldn't let them go to the toilet. That kind of debasement is just staggering. No human being is a piece of rubbish." Rev Verryn said he had not experienced anything similar since the days of apartheid, when he used to shelter ANC activists at his house in Soweto and was raided by agents of the regime.
"In a sense this was my nightmare come true. If this is a statement to the church as an official body in this country then we are at the dawn of a very profound problem in this nation." He said no distinction should be drawn between political and economic migrants from Zimbabwe, as all were victims of the regime. Yesterday, Harare announced a new record high for its inflation figure, at 26,470.8 per cent.
Faith Hondo - not her real name - is an MDC activist from Harare who has lived in the church for two years, with two of her children, and whose application for refugee status is still being processed.
"They were just telling us, 'Why are you here? Are you animals? Go back to your country, we don't want you, go back to Zimbabwe and vote for Mugabe'," she said.
"It pains me. I have a reason for coming here, I didn't just come here for nothing. They want to kill me in Harare. I don't know where to go, I can't go back to Zimbabwe, I'm afraid."
Gifted Zimbabwe, 28, said that police demanded bribes of 100 rand (£7) to be allowed to stay at the church. "What happened here is very dangerous," he said. "We have been safe here but the problem is if they are coming like this we are not safe." At the scene an official of South Africa's Independent Complaints Directorate, which investigates allegations against the police, said the Zimbabweans' allegations were not only plausible, but unsurprising.
A police spokesman said they had acted in response to complaints from shopkeepers in the area, and Govindsamy Mariemuthoo, a police director, described the operation as a "crime prevention raid".
Zim Ping.
We oughta do that exact same thing here.
And the world stood by. Damn us.
“record high for its inflation figure, at 26,470.8 per cent. “
How do they know it is exactly that?
All U.S. troops would be, is targets over there.
Colonial racist oppressors, don’t ya know?
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They don't. Any estimate of inflation rate is fictional. Even the rate of change of the rate of inflation is becoming fictional.
Zim's economy has crashed and burned. Money has ceased to have any meaning. Anyone who acquires any money had best get rid of it right away in exchange for food or anything with barter value.
Note that the newly issued megabuck bank note is actually a bearer iou and has an expiry date.
They TOLERATED Mugabe an this is what they got. We would get the same with Hillary an Venezuela is getting there with Hugo.
Hey the top candidates in both parties in the US would probably like to have the government here create a 0% interest rate. (economy would crash and burn)
“Any estimate of inflation rate is fictional”
Sure, so why bother with the “.8” part? LOL
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