- The effects of Robert Mugabe's regime are forcing thousands
of people to seek sanctuary in neighbouring countries - a situation that
is threatening to destabalise the whole region.
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- GABRONE, Botswana -- Less
than a mile from the mirror-panelled banks and high-rise offices of Botswana's
richest firms, penniless Zimbabweans gather on dusty street corners begging
for work.
-
- Unregistered, unkempt and unlawful in a foreign land,
the desperate men whisper "Piece work, piece work" sotto voce,
meaning "odd job" to any passer-by.
-
- If you are brave enough to stop your car at what appears
to be an empty junction, a mini-stampede erupts as Zimbabweans surge towards
the vehicle, hands flapping for car door handles in an unseemly scrum to
be first in line.
-
- Malnourished and haggard, the men try anything to convince
would-be employers. Some brandish O-level certificates as proof that they
passed through Zimbabwe's once respected but now barely functioning education
system.
-
- Others show references from employers back in Zimbabwe
long closed down or even character references from the country's opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, to indicate that they are not tainted by
association with President Robert Mugabe's regime.
-
- All the documents have to be retrieved from a carefully
secreted position - tucked in a sock or hidden behind a belt. To be found
with such paperwork by the police is grounds for the bearer to be kicked
out of Botswana as an illegal.
-
- "I have been coming across the border regularly
for two years now," said 24-year-old Mqondisi from Zimbabwe's second
city, Bulawayo.
-
- "We get a few days' permission to be here, but we
all stay to look for work because a little bit of money here in Botswana
is more than we can hope for in Zimbabwe. The police catch us and stick
us in the trucks that take us back over the border, but after a few days
we come back."
-
- The problems caused to southern Africa by the Mugabe
regime's systematic destruction of the economy and the democratic system
are causing worsening trouble.
-
- An estimated three million Zimbabweans are seeking sanctuary
in neighbouring South Africa, while 400,000 have gone to Mozambique. Anything
from 10 to 20 per cent of the Zimbabwean population have left their homes
to seek job security and wages in neighbouring lands.
-
- Trains, buses and lorries have been used by the South
African authorities to deport 498,321 since the crisis began in 2000, according
to official figures, although it is believed that only one in six illegal
immigrants is caught.
-
- Even desperately poor Mozambique is now attracting Zimbabweans.
Thousands have streamed over the mountainous eastern border into Manica
province, hoping to be paid in any currency other than the Zimbabwean dollar.
-
- Ironically, many black Zimbabweans are leaving for Mozambique
to work on farms being run by the same white farmers kicked off their land
by Mr Mugabe.
-
- Zimbabwe may hate the white farmer, but scores have been
welcomed into Mozambique by the authorities keen to lure agricultural specialists,
especially in the tobacco sector.
-
- Botswana, too, has also been inundated. A rare African
economic success story, it is now under threat from hundreds of thousands
of illegal immigrants. It is dramatic proof of the regional chaos caused
by Mr Mugabe's chaotic rule.
-
- With a tiny population of only 1.7 million, Botswana
faces being overwhelmed by those fleeing the economic chaos, political
violence and spiralling lawlessness of Zimbabwe, which has a population
more than eight times greater.
-
- The flood has led inexorably to tension, with Botswanans
blaming the arrivals for a surge in petty crime and for stealing jobs.
Local police have been accused of beating the arrivals and other human
rights abuses.
-
- Spencer Mogapi, editor of the independent Botswana Gazette,
said: "If we had 10,000 illegal Zimbabweans here we would not be able
to cope because we are so small.
-
- "But our government says officially that there are
60,000 here already and most people believe the real number to be much
more than that."
-
- The suburb of White City in the Botswanan capital, Gaborone,
offers clear proof of the scale of the problem. As the crisis in Zimbabwe
has worsened, the illegal immigrant situation in Botswana has become steadily
worse, although the secretive government of President Festus Mogae rarely
speaks publicly about the problem.
-
- He is understood to be concerned about the influx, which
threatens the economic and social stability of his small country, and as
a result he is believed to be one of Mr Mugabe's fiercest regional critics.
-
- A new detention centre for illegal immigrants has recently
been built near Botswana's border with Zimbabwe, and Botswana is erecting
an electrified fence along the border to stop illegal immigrants and diseased
cattle.
-
- There was no response from the president's spokesman
after an approach by The Telegraph, and a western television crew was asked
to leave the country recently after attempting to film a report on the
issue.
-
- Don McKinnon, secretary general of the Commonwealth,
discussed the regional fall-out from Mr Mugabe's economic mismanagement
recently and let slip that Botswana might have as many as 200,000 illegal
immigrants from Zimbabwe.
-
- Alfred Dube, Botswana's ambassador at the United Nations,
hinted at the threat of vigilantism against illegal Zimbabwean immigrants
who are blamed for everything from petty crime to spreading Aids.
-
- "We are concerned about what is going on,"
said the ambassador. "It is very unfortunate that we have our houses
being burgled every day and our children being harassed. We understand
why our people are saying Zimbabweans must go."
-
- Back in Gaborone, Mr Mogapi said death provided the starkest
proof of the scale of the problem. "There are so many of them that
when they die they are filling up our mortuaries for days as their families
do not have the means to come to collect them," he said.
-
- "The authorities here have to bury them in unmarked
graves. It is a very sad situation."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news
- /2003/11/08/wzim08.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/08/ixnewstop.html
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