Come Home to Zimbabwe

Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN

Zimbabwean migrants que to get into South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, 27 August 2009 (IRIN) – A new labour migration centre at the Beitbridge border crossing between Zimbabwe and South Africa will be the first step in implementing an agreement between the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa to reduce irregular migration and promote safe, legal migration options.

The new centre, run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), was opened on 27 August, when the two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cooperation and support in the fields of labour and employment.

Erin Foster, the IOM information and communication officer in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, said the pilot project would facilitate the temporary migration of seasonal workers to South Africa’s northern Limpopo Province from three districts in Zimbabwe: Chiredzi, Masvingo and Beitbridge.

The goal of the project was “to reduce the dangers for migrants … [and] limit the risks that exist for individuals”. Zimbabwean job seekers – initially some 5,000 – would register with their local district labour centres, while South African farmers would register their labour requirements.

After a matching process run by the centre, workers will be issued with passports and work permits allowing them to travel for the duration of their contract.

“This development comes at a critical time when South Africa has announced a Special Dispensation Permit for Zimbabweans wanting to live and work in South Africa,” An IOM statement said.

From MDC communiqué, The Changing Times, 21 August 209

The Office of the Prime Minister, Hon. Morgan Tsvangirai will review the controversial law that was used to strip thousands of people of their citizenship and right to vote because they were once citizens of other countries or because their parents were once foreigners.

The Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s office, Hon. Gorden Moyo, said the Prime Minister’s office was working on a policy document on the citizenship law that will be submitted to Cabinet.

He said changes to the law were necessary to enable thousands of Zimbabweans who lost their citizenship or who have acquired citizenship of other countries to participate in national affairs.

“All we are saying is that let’s discuss about these issues.  There are a lot of children who were born out of the country and acquired citizenship of their resident countries but they are also Zimbabweans who have lost their citizenship because of the dual citizenship law,” said Hon. Moyo.

Zimbabwe bars dual citizenship, while a 2003 amendment to the Citizenship Act tightened the law by requiring Zimbabweans who were once citizens of other countries or whose parents were once foreigners to formally renounce that “foreign citizenship” in order to qualify for Zimbabwean citizenship.

The law saw thousands of Zimbabweans being removed from the citizenship roll, in a plot by Zanu PF to whittle down the MDC’s support.

Most of those affected by the law were white Zimbabweans of European origin or black workers on white-owned farms whose parents migrated from neighbouring countries and who largely supported the MDC.

Hon. Moyo said the proposed changes to the citizenship law were part of wider efforts to restore the rights of an estimated three million Zimbabweans or a quarter of the country’s 12 million people living in exile and to encourage them to participate in the recovery of the country.
“We are working on a policy document that is going to increase the participation of Zimbabweans in the diaspora in the economy and other spheres,” he said.
“We are still on the discussion stage but the policy is going to deal with issues such as the remittances of investments, repatriation of skills, refugees, restoration of voting rights and the citizenship question.”
Hon. Tsvangirai has since called on exiled Zimbabweans to return home to help rebuild the country.

JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai got a warm reception on Saturday in Johannesburg as he appealed to exiled Zimbabweans to invest in and return to their country.

“The reconstruction cannot be done by government alone, by people in Zimbabwe alone,” he said at a rally of about 300 Zimbabweans singing protest songs and greeting his speech with cheers, claps and whistles.

“You and everyone else will have to play their part in that reconstruction agenda. Zimbabwe is changing,” he said. “It is slow and it can be frustrating, but it is changing.”

The rally at the University of Witswatersrand here contrasted sharply with his welcome in June in England, where Tsvangirai was jeered when he appealed to Zimbabweans to return to their country.

“I think he’s a true leader. He’s a person who can take Zimbabwe from darkness to the sunny side,” said one attendee at the rally, Mduduza Mcube, 29.

Several people wore shirts saying the Zimbabwe’s President Robert “Mugabe must go” and waved the Zimbabwean flag.

Many at the rally were reluctant, however, to return to a country which is still plagued by economic and political instability.

Farai Madamombe, 39, was disappointed by Tsvangirai’s speech, which he said did not give him a “roadmap” back to his country.

Madamombe moved to South Africa three years ago after losing his job as an accountant in Zimbabwe, and said he could not return until there were job opportunities there.

South African investors on Friday evening were also receptive to Tsvangirai but appeared hesitant to commit money to Zimbabwe, saying it would be a humanitarian investment unlikely to reap financial benefits.

“This country’s economic stability requires access to foreign markets, finance, technologies, skills and ideas, which are only made possible by all the key stakeholders working together as partners committed to Zimbabwe’s development,” Tsvangirai said at a dinner for South African industry leaders.

Tsvangirai and Mugabe formed a unity government in February after Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s only ruler since its independence, lost a first round vote last year.

The government was formed to end the violence that erupted after the vote and to rescue the floundering economy.

Tsvangirai arrived in South Africa Friday and was due to meet with South African President Jacob Zuma before he leaves on Tuesday to discuss the problems Zimbabwe’s unity government is facing, according to MDC spokesman Sibanengi Dube.