Zimbabwe's woes spill across border Boston Globe Date posted:Tue 2-Mar-2004 Date published:Sun 29-Feb-2004
Back to previous page		Many countries are working hard to stop "border jumpers" S African town neighbour team up to handle influx By John Donnelly, Globe Staff Musina - Around southern Africa, many countries are working hard to stop "border jumpers" - Zimbabweans who illegally sneak into surrounding nations to seek jobs or escape political persecution as their nation slips further into chaos. This border town has crafted some imaginative agreements with its Zimbabwean counterpart, Beitbridge, across the bridge over the Limpopo River, to cope with the impact of the worsening miseries in Zimbabwe since the government began seizing land from white farmers in 2000. Still, Zimbabwe's problems are literally spilling into South Africa. Beitbridge's waste treatment plant's main pump is broken and the facility is spewing sewage into the Limpopo, the source of water for both towns. During the last six months, patient visits have doubled at Musina Hospital, and half of those patients are from Zimbabwe. Its maternity ward is swamped with Zimbabwean women, who deliver nearly 70 percent of the babies born at the hospital. In communities around Musina, social workers are reporting a large increase in orphans in recent months. Almost all the children are from outside South Africa - Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. Their parents have died largely from AIDS-related diseases, and they have gravitated toward South Africa's relative wealth. It means many orphans here are alone, with no relatives to care for them. And there are legions of Zimbabwean children who slip into South Africa to earn money, some of them selling their bodies. "Many children think of going to Musina to work," Alice Nsingo, a Zimbabwean child protection officer based in Beitbridge, said in a telephone interview. "We need to come up with strategies that combat the problem." An estimated 3.4 million Zimbabweans, or perhaps one-quarter of the country's population, are living outside the country, according to a recent study by an advisory board to Zimbabwe's Central Bank. The group, which is trying to find ways to get those exiles to send hard currency home, found that more than 1.2 million Zimbabweans were in South Africa; another 1.1 million in Britain, the country's former colonial ruler; and the rest scattered in southern Africa, the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Some Zimbabweans in South Africa, such as Gabriel Shumba, 29, a human rights lawyer, say they have fled President Robert Mugabe's regime because they feared for their lives. "I have scars on my head, on my chest, from the torture I received," said Shumba one day recently, sitting on a bench at the University of Pretoria and opening his shirt to show the marks. "I've been arrested 14 times since 1993 for protesting the regime's policies. I finally left seven months ago after receiving death threats." And because Zimbabwe's inflation rate has soared over 600 percent, making basic goods unavailable to poor people, and there is little chance to find work, many have fled their country as economic refugees. In Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, recently, 11 young Zimbabwean women allowed the founder of an HIV/AIDS support group, Helen Ditsebe Mhone, to enter their shared hovel in a tiny concrete room. The women were all prostitutes. The floor was covered with bare mattresses, heaps of clothes and shoes, and small tanks of propane, used for cooking. "I know you guys have a problem in Zimbabwe, but the thing is, you're taking big risks with AIDS," Mhone said, sitting on the floor among them. Before she could say more, several women spoke up. "How can you get a job in Zimbabwe?" said one. "How can we live?" said another. "We get into a man's car, and we know we are risking our lives," said a third, "but tell us, what is our choice?" In Musina - formerly known as Messina - the stories are different, but hardship remains the common theme. At the town's vegetable market, Ishmael Moyo, 33, sells bags of South African onions and tomatoes to local people. His wife and four children are nearly 200 miles north in Zimbabwe, but he said he couldn't support them there. Now he earns roughly $300 a month in the market among other Zimbabwean sellers, some of them doctors and lawyers. "I start work at 7 a.m., and I end at 5 p.m., and at night I read my Bible and pray," he said. "I am grateful for my faith. It is very hard to be away from my family. But there are more terrible sides of South Africa for us Zimbabweans, especially on the farms. It is almost like slave labor. They earn 150 or 200 rands a month from the farmers. It is nothing." Musina officials confirmed his story. They say they have confronted farmers, who have denied employing refugees. "Some of us in South Africa are benefiting from this crisis," said David Phologa, the mayor. "It's just like a war situation, where some people benefit by selling weapons. We benefit from taking advantage of cheap labor. It's not right." In response to these problems, representatives from Musina and Beitbridge have reached a series of agreements in quiet meetings over the last few months. The accords call for easing cross-border travel for local residents and jointly facing other problems stemming from Zimbabwe's troubles. While the impact of two towns that combined have a population of 75,000 people may not be earth-shattering by itself, officials in both communities hope their countries take notice and learn from their co-operation. "The fact is even if you improve security on the borders, people from Zimbabwe will still come and be with us," said Phologa. "The crisis there is affecting us in every way - the economy, the HIV rates, social matters, jobs." The Musina and Beitbridge officials met under the approval of provincial and national governments, which two years ago had encouraged communities to form "twinning," or sister-city, relationships. Phologa is hopeful that both national governments will approve the recommendations from the towns' officials, including granting border passes for residents to facilitate trade and approving initiatives aimed at attracting tourists. Still, he and others acknowledged, events in Zimbabwe are not predictable. Earlier this month, for instance, Zimbabwe slapped a 500 percent increase on duty charges at the border, which overnight stopped most of the imports. But the joint effort by the two border towns reaches deeper than simply improving trade. One great concern is the impact of so many Zimbabweans seeking care at the Musina Hospital. "The systems have collapsed in Zimbabwe," said David Mokobi, Musina's community liaison officer. "They have no medicines, and so if they are sick, they come here." Another initiative is building "safe houses" for children in Musina. One of the most remarkable passages in the towns' draft agreement concerns the protection of children, especially orphans. It reads, in part, "We are saying if a child is seen in the street of Musina or Beitbridge, we as the community will have failed and committed a crime." The author of that passage is Nsingo, the Zimbabwean child protection officer. "The words are very strong, I know," she said. "But if there are orphaned children wandering in the streets, we will have failed as parents, as a community, as two communities. We will have committed a crime. We now agree to work together on this."