South Africans An Ungrateful Lot – Biti
“We are all Africans living in the same global village and Zimbabwean labour have been building the South African economy and rebuilding it. Also there is no African who did not fight against Apartheid,” he said.
He said it was unfortunate for South Africa to take such a rigid position, saying the move was Xenophobic in another way.
“Our people can come back and we have no problems about that, but the principle I am questioning is that an African Government can take a drastic action against an African people. I think that policy needs to be re-looked at,”Biti told journalists in Harare Thursday evening.
South African authorities announced last week that the deportations would begin as of the 31st December this year, warning that all undocumented Zimbabweans have until that date to sort out their paperwork. A moratorium on Zimbabwean deportations was announced in
May last year, at the same time that the South African government announced it intended giving Zimbabweans a special dispensation permit.
That permit was meant to assist Zimbabweans in regularising their stay in South Africa, as technically, with the special permit, they no longer had to apply for refugee status to work or receive support. But that permit was never rolled out, and the paperwork crisis that
epitomises South Africa’s Home Affairs department means most Zimbabweans in the country remain undocumented.
Thousands of Zimbabweans skipped the country at the peak of Zimbabwean political and economic crisis and went to regional and international countries in search of better fortunes.