Dilemma for SA Zimbabweans (the makwerekweres)

RAIDS come fast, furious and at random, from one street end to the other. Squealing and shrieking, the makwerekweres, as Zimbabwean immigrants are derogatorily called in South Africa, are dragged out of their workplaces, kicked onto pavements and have their few belongings hurled at them. They have to leap to catch them, walk solemnly to a secluded place and ponder their future - to return or not to return home!

For most of them, the option to return is out, not now nor in the foreseeable future! Even as they live with uncertainty and insecurity. Such is the existence for many Zimbabwean citizens resident "down south". The South African government last month caused a huge outcry when it announced that 250 000 Zimbabweans who were issued with temporary study and work permits under the so-called special dispensation in 2010 would have to troop back to their country because the permits that are set to expire at the end of the year, were not going to be renewed.

Pretoria followed that announcement by listing a plethora of critical skills they would be considering for visas for one to continue residing in the neighbouring country - the skills absent in the vast majority of those Zimbabweans. Doom was cast on those who would dare defy the statutes and decide to illegally stay on. They would be apprehended, deported and banned from setting foot in the ‘rainbow' nation for a period ranging from one up to five years.

From the northern side of the Limpopo River, the Zimbabwe government pressed the panic button. Suddenly, 250 000 plus people with permits - who if added with family members each of them potentially stays with be they children, spouse, siblings at an average of four per family, would result in over a million people - were returning to a country where the economy is failing.

These are people used to a relatively higher standard of living, with less expensive goods and services. There was no way they would come back and settle quietly and without consequence. Emphasis on the word quietly! That force could just not return. They had to stay there. Otherwise how could they be absorbed by a country whose economy has already burst at the seams.

This demanded the immediate intervention of the person and office of no lesser status than that of the Home Affairs Minister, Kembo Mohadi.

"We have been trying to engage them, by the time we were trying to engage them they were just from an election and there was a new minister who was still finding his feet in South Africa but he has since allowed us to see him and have conversation with him," Mohadi told a press conference shortly after South Africa's announcement of the new regulations.

The minister was on the plane for a good number of times, oscillating between Harare and Pretoria for negotiations. Thanks for the efforts, Minister, the South Africans agreed to issue new permits for three years from December 31, 2014 under another dispensation. Although, the government of Zimbabwe, proud as it is, would never have admitted that the country's bleeding economy would not be able to accommodate those multitudes who were to throng the country of birth had the permits not been extended, there was palpable relief when Mohadi's counterpart across the Limpopo, Malusi Gigaba, announced last week that those permits were to be extended.

It is critical to put that relief into perspective. At the height of the far-fetched negotiations that culminated in the settlement, Zimbabweans in the border town of Musina who had been terrorised by South African police since the issue of permits first came up in May were lounging around in despair. They told sad stories of harassment by South African police officers who, according to them, where acting on instructions from their government.

They were dragged out of their workplaces and thrown onto the streets in the most humiliating fashion. The police officers made it clear that this was just an introduction; the real war was about to come once their permits expired in December. One victim of these raids is Douglas Tafirei, who settled in Musina at the height of the economic meltdown in 2008 as an illegal immigrant. He became one of the beneficiaries of the permits regime. He visits Gokwe, his place of birth, from time to time but despite the escalating harassment, he has no plans to return home permanently.

Tafirei, a builder by profession, had decided to join fellow countrymen who spent the day loading wares belonging to Zimbabwean shoppers in the lorries parked on the outskirts of the town. "Things are not good at all these days. Since this talk of permits, we have never had peace. The South African police officers harass us every Friday morning and our employers do not defend us. Their argument is that we should not flood the job market, a situation which they say is rendering their citizens jobless," he said just days before Gigaba delivered the good news.

"We were roofing that building over there," he says pointing at a building under construction across the street, "and they came and ordered us off. The instruction was that we are not allowed to set foot there again. Instead of protecting us, the South African contractor who had employed us was shouting ‘take them far away' and all the three of us Zimbabweans employed there failed to access our wages," added Tafirei fighting back tears.

Despite all this, he is adamant that returning to Zimbabwe is not an option. "I am not coming back home anytime soon. From my regular visits to Zimbabwe, I have realised that life is very difficult there. I will stay on even if the permits are not renewed. I can do some menial jobs and still be able to survive," he argued. Like Tafirei, many of the Zimbabweans in South Africa are reluctant to return back to the blues. And their government, judging by its concerted efforts, is determined to have them stay on in a foreign land and it has its own reasons and its own fears.

What cannot be doubted is the fact that there is a likelihood of a civil unrest if those people were to return in their numbers today and start a jobless life and the government is very well aware of that. Since they left, the country's economy has worsened. It is certainly impossible to think that they would come back and quietly trade the luxury of cheaper goods and services of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and all the other glittering cities and towns of South Africa with the shoestring budget lifestyle of Harare and Bulawayo, the most likely destinations for them all.

Another aspect worth considering is the fact that spiteful relationships would ensue between the incoming Zimbabweans and those who decided to stay on and endure the biting challenges. As was the case in Liberia once. For years, the west African country was ravaged by a civil war which sent about a quarter of its population into exile.

When the war ended, they faced a huge wave of discrimination with much of the suspicion and resentment spurred out of fear among locals who felt incoming Liberians, most of whom appeared both socially and academically equipped, were poised to take over the "best jobs" and have them subordinated. They felt they could not be left to the bottom because they were the ones who shed their sweat and blood when the country was in shambles.

This factor cannot be ruled out. For political analyst, Rashweat Mukundu, the desperation by the Zimbabwean government to keep its citizens in South Africa showed that Harare has realised that it was a political safety issue. "It's a political safety issue for the Zanu-PF government because there wouldn't be more people agitating for jobs, and for economic and political reform hence the push by the Zimbabwean government even at a level as high as the ministerial level.

"Having all those Zimbabweans coming back to the country would exert huge social and political pressure on the government and so is using South Africa as a release pressure valve as the economic situation keeps tightening," said Mukundu.

Another political commentator, Alexander Rusero, said the threat by South Africa not to renew the permits was "mere political posturing" as it immensely benefited from the influx of Zimbabweans in their country. "That was mere political posturing by Pretoria because they know very well that those Zimbabweans are playing a critical role in the economic development of their country as they are among not only the most skilled of employees, but also provide cheap labour in the farms, mines and factories and they are filling a huge gap in keeping their economy running," he said.

Whereas the non-renewal of the permits would certainly lead to a huge crackdown on illegal immigrants and resultant mass deportations, renewing them implies that the Zimbabweans would, at the time they shall expire, be eligible for permanent residence, according to the South African immigration laws.

The laws state that anyone who has resided in that country for five consecutive years would be automatically eligible to apply for permanent resident status and it would be very interesting to see how Pretoria will handle the situation. For now, it is a relief to the Zimbabwean government and its citizens who are economic refugees. That refugee tag is not leaving them for some more years.