Come Home to Zimbabwe

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.