REFUGEE rights groups have accused South Africa’s Home Affairs ministry of “dishonesty” over its decision to lift a two-year moratorium on deportations to Zimbabwe.
South Africa carried out its first deportations starting last Wednesday, but campaigners claim officials may have misled parliament over their intentions.
The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum and the People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty on Monday wrote to the South African Parliament’s Home Affairs committee, accusing Home Affairs Director General Mkuseli Apleni of misleading lawmakers.
Apleni signed a September 30 directive authorising the detention and removal of undocumented Zimbabweans “with immediate effect”. But just a week earlier, say the two groups, he had told MPs that “no Zimbabwean will be deported ... up to the time that we close the (documentation) project” – a special scheme introduced in May 2009 to issue work permits to Zimbabwean migrants who applied by December 31 last year.
“Our daily monitoring efforts at DHA [Department of Home Affairs] offices show us that the issuing of permits will only be completed towards the end of the year, at best,” the two groups said in the letter to MPs.
“There are tens of thousands of Zimbabweans still waiting for their permits. Therefore, we cannot comprehend the statement by DG Apleni that 'the ZDP had come to an end on September 30th'.”
“PASSOP and ZEF are extremely concerned about the lack of transparency of the Director General of Home Affairs in his engagements with both parliament and civil society. We cannot believe that the same week that the Director General briefed the Committee on the Zimbabwean Documentation Project, he failed to mention that he was about to sign a directive that ordered the resumption of deportations of Zimbabweans,” the two organisations said.
"We expect transparency and honesty from the Department of Home Affairs. After fully reviewing the meeting’s minutes and transcripts, we believe that the Director General has misled parliament and civil society.”
The two groups said the moratorium on deportations “was introduced on the realisation that it was not tenable to forcibly return Zimbabweans because of the socio-economic and political environment prevailing there.”
“This environment has since not been adequately resolved; therefore PASSOP and ZEF’s position is that it is ill-advised and premature to recommence deportations at this time. Both civil society organisations and the Zimbabwean government are not in a position to deal with the large human rights and humanitarian costs that the resumption of deportations brings about.”
In the first two days of the deportations, officials say 600 people were dumped at Beitbridge.
Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa has defended the decision to resume removals.
He told reporters the majority of Zimbabweans living in South Africa were “law-abiding citizens who had done everything in their power to regularise their stay by taking advantage of the documentation project”.
He added: “Accordingly, those Zimbabweans living in South Africa and (who) had applied for the regularisation of their stay through the Zimbabwean documentation project have nothing to fear.
“Nobody who has applied for the regularisation of their stay in South Africa will be subject to deportation as their stay is protected in our rules and regulations.
“However, those who did not take advantage of the regularisation project, including those who continue to undermine South Africa’s immigration laws by entering the country illegally, cannot claim protection of the country’s rules and regulations governing the regularisation of Zimbabweans living in South Africa.”
South African authorities believe there are more than 1,5 million Zimbabweans living in Africa’s biggest economy, but just 275,762 people submitted work permit applications under the special dispensation.