| | | The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit was established 13 years ago as a way of allowing Zimbabwean citizens to live, work and study in South Africa without facing too much red tape. But last December it was announced that the program would end on Dec. 31, 2022. Following outcry from human rights groups and the estimated 178,000 ZEP holders, as well as two high court challenges to the decision, permit holders have recently been given a further six months to “regularize their status.” Whatever happens with the legal challenges, all of the experts OZY spoke to believe the current government, the African National Congress (ANC), has no plans to backtrack on the decision to end the program. The implications are many — both for Zimbabweans in South Africa and for the legacy of the inclusive “rainbow nation” that Nelson Mandela strove to build. |
| | Officially, only 6,000 Zimbabweans in South Africa — or 1 in every 30 ZEP holders — have applied to stay in the country legally. It is for them that the South African government has extended the ZEP by six months. But a vast majority of ZEP holders might not even be applying for regularization. That’s not because they don’t want to stay in South Africa but because they believe the system is loaded against them in a way that they will almost certainly not be granted papers to remain, said experts. Sharon Ekambaram, who heads the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights, said that, due to their low economic and educational status, the vast majority of ZEP holders know they have no hope of being “regularized.” The real problem, in her view, is that South Africa “has a failed asylum system.” She told OZY of one office that’s known to reject 100% of applications for refugee status. | | ...due to their low economic and educational status, the vast majority of ZEP holders know they have no hope of being “regularized.” - Sharon Ekambaram  | | If the ZEP is eventually discontinued, it’s likely to affect permit holders in different ways. Those with the financial means should find it relatively easy to regularize their stays in South Africa or to seek opportunities abroad. But the history of the ZEP suggests that most of its holders are, in Ekambaram’s words, “the most vulnerable, the poorest of the poor.” These people will either be forced to return to Zimbabwe, a country whose economic prospects are even worse than South Africa’s, or stay in South Africa illegally. While ending the program is unlikely to have a major impact on South Africa’s economy, she said it could negatively affect Zimbabwe’s, which is heavily reliant on remittances sent home by citizens working in other countries. |
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| | | | |  | | Many experts see the ANC’s move to scrap the ZEP as part of the ruling party’s campaign strategy ahead of general elections in 2024 where, for the first time since coming to power under Nelson Mandela in 1994, the ANC looks likely to receive less than 50% of the vote. The ANC has failed categorically to transform the lives of its poor, Black constituents. The estimated four million foreigners, including around 1.5 million Zimbabweans, who live in South Africa are an easy scapegoat. The belief that “the foreigners are stealing your jobs” is widespread — despite research in 2016 showing that the average economic migrant to Gauteng province, for instance, actually created 2.6 jobs. “It’s xenophobia pure and simple,” said Zimbabwean-born activist Dale McKinley, co-founder of Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia. “When a government’s own failures become manifest they resort to xenophobic discourse,” he said. What makes the development even more disappointing is that the ANC was founded on principles of pan-Africanism — and the party was heavily dependent on the support of other African nations, including Zimbabwe, during the struggle against apartheid. | | It’s xenophobia pure and simple. - Zimbabwean-born activist Dale McKinley | | In August, the health minister of Limpopo Province, Phophi Ramathuba of the ANC, was recorded ranting at a Zimbabwean hospital patient. “You’re supposed to be with Mnangagwa [Zimbabwe’s president],” she said. “He doesn't give me money to operate [on] you guys. Now I must operate [on] you with my limited budget...” This despite the fact that South Africa’s Bill of Rights — the brainchild of current President Cyril Ramaphosa — enshrines far-reaching rights for “all people in our country.” And in September, the ANC’s mayor of Musina told a local government forum: “We must minimize the rights of immigrants and migrants. They must be made uncomfortable. What do you do if you see a cockroach in your house? You buy Doom,” he said, referring to a popular local insecticide brand. Anti-immigrant police raids and roadblocks in Johannesburg, meanwhile, have resulted in thousands of foreigners being arrested since the COVID-19 lockdowns were lifted earlier this year. |
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| | | | |  | | As an electioneering tactic, said Ekambaram, the xenophobic rhetoric seems to be working. It has “diverted the attention of communities away from holding [the] government to account. The people have drunk the Kool-Aid.” McKinley too told OZY that the xenophobia has “played well with the ANC’s constituency,” before adding that the ruling party has felt compelled to “keep up with the opposition.” He was referring to a broader shift in South African politics. | | We must minimize the rights of immigrants and migrants. They must be made uncomfortable. What do you do if you see a cockroach in your house? You buy Doom. - ANC mayor of Musina | | Parties with openly xenophobic manifestos — such as Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA and Gayton McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance — exceeded expectations in the 2021 Municipal Elections. And even the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, has “flirted with xenophobia without embracing it fully,” McKinley said. Outside of the party political system, the xenophobic tide has surged even stronger. The rise of Operation Dudula — dudula means to “force out” or “knock down” in isiZulu — has embarked on illegal raids across South Africa, destroying foreign-owned businesses and, in April this year, burning the 43-year-old Zimbabwean economic refugee Mbhodazwe Elvis Nyathi to death. Just last month, three Zimbabweans were “burnt beyond recognition” in Elim near Johannesburg. While President Ramaphosa has denounced Operation Dudula participants as “vigilantes,” the ANC’s national spokesperson Pule Mabe contradicted his boss by calling the group “constructive.” |
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| | | | | | |  | | But where does this leave Munda and the 178,000 other ZEP holders and their families? McKinley feels that the legal challenge from the Helen Suzman Foundation — which argues that “those who have scrupulously observed South Africa’s laws in order to live and work here under the ZEP cannot have such permits terminated without fair process, good reason and a meaningful opportunity to regularize their status” — has a good chance of succeeding in obtaining a further reprieve for ZEP permit holders. While Ekambaram sees the merits of the case, she fears that “given the current climate, the court might find it hard to rule in favor.” Regardless, neither expert sees the ZEP being allowed to continue indefinitely. And they’re equally convinced that, as the 2024 elections approach, the ANC will continue to push the anti-foreigner rhetoric — something which, given the dire economic plight of many South Africans, could result in widespread xenophobic violence. Since 2008, occasional outbursts of deadly violence have targeted foreigners. And just last year, 354 people were killed in riots which, although not primarily aimed at foreigners, were clearly the result of the ANC’s failure to deliver on the promises made to poor, Black South Africans. | | It is painful to leave a place you have heavily invested in, and to be forced back into a country you fled because of corruption, dictatorship and an economy that is regressing. - Tapiwa Munda | | While many South Africans are pinning their hopes on the ANC losing its absolute majority in 2024, a coalition government “could be even worse for migrants,” warned Ekambaram. Besides, added McKinley, the problem is not just a South African one. He said he hopes for “fundamental political change” in Zimbabwe and all the other African countries people are fleeing for economic or political reasons. “Very few migrants are where they want to be,” he said. “That is a universal truth.” |
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