Firstly, I would like to congratulate WOZA for having been bestowed a very prestigious award by the United States of America's President, Barack Obama in the last week in Washington.Ilungelo ngelakho (Zulu for: It Is Your Right).
(Pictured: WOZA's Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu in the USA last week)
Last week I decided to visit the Methodist church in Central Johannesburg, just to see for myself what was going down there. After a long and unfruitful discussion with a government official hours before that, I set out for the church to see and get the feel of what these poor souls were experiencing.
There has been a lot of talk and absolutely no action social and political circles with regards to this place and its inhabitants. In the darkest, dubious corridors of power, South Africa's senior government officials have discussed at length about these people, but have constantly fallen flat on their tummies and abysmally failed to resurrect not even a single solution for them. Only NGOs come to their rescue once in a while, at least they do.
Zimbabwean refugees remain a problem for the government of South Africa and the Department of Home Affairs. As the country's laws stand, they give no recognition for economic refugees under which the previous Thabo Mbeki led administration fought so hard to classify these people.
The laws in South Africa do recognise political refugees, but there remains a certain leaning by the government, that is so against claims that Zimbabwe does have political activists who are in danger. This seemingly is African National Congress's policy and was evidently displayed by the long and winding road Eric Bennett's case was taken through, including the rejection of his claim of being persecuted by the Zimbabwean Authorities.
However, after a long court battle, he was eventually granted asylum - how many of those poor refugees being haboured at the Central Methodist Church can afford such a long court battle with a government determined and unleashing its every possible resource to save its face in the international community, through denying these foreigners their rights, a right to protection and a right to asylum - to be precise.
Last week, the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Zuma announced that she will be doing some consultations, that began with COSATU on a new migration policy for the government. This policy might benefit Zimbabweans and other nationalities as it has been mentioned that it will look at the possibilities of recognising econimic immigrants and refugees from the neighbouring countries.
The government is prepared to alter its migration policy so as to incorporate economic migrants or economic refugees because it is not prepared to give out political asylum to Zimbabweans. Rather, the policy be altered....ha!
The South African government is aware of the fact that there are endangered people within its borders, but intentionally refuse to accept it for obvious political reasons. As the guarantor of the so called Global Political Agreement, the leadership wants to be seen by the international world as having made progress in Zimbabwe. Thabo Mbeki was well known for his "What Crisis?" phrase and Zimbabweans discarded him, just as South Africans did themselves a bit later.
But still, little has been done both by the SADC and the Mugabe led ZANU PF to convince Zimbabweans scattered all over and the world in general that there is a political will from them to resolve the sticking areas of the GPA. Morgan Tsvangirai led Movement for Democratic Change has been in the lead and so much has changed for the better in Zimbabwe recently recording a positive GDP and an even better focust by the International Monetory Fund. A first in ten years!.
Zimbabwe remains a very safe country to live in....only if you do not meddle in politics, but if you decide to stand up and lift an open palm outstretched and point out what is wrong....you are state enemy number 1. You might never live to see the following morning stars.
The vicious claws of the political and security machinations are digging even deeper with the thought of losing power or sharing that with the opposition MDC. Through all this, no or so little thought is spared to the suffering masses, but all minds go to the "likely pain" of losing wealth and the vast barren under-utilised farming eastates as well as mining interests!
