SA farmers hunt refugees – as Zim exodus overwhelms cops

dead last week attempting to cross the border. Their bodies were found between Panda Mine and Dete. The shootings came a few days after the MDC spokesperson for Johannesburg, Giyani Dube, confirmed that Zimbabwean police and Central Intelligence Organisation agents had begun an operation called Mugabe tora vanhu vako (Mugabe take your people).
The tide of hungry, weary and frightened humanity – fleeing economic collapse and Mugabeb’s reign of terror ahead of elections in 2008 – has overwhelmed the SA authorities, who cannot cope with the huge numbers. Farmers in the border areas have formed vigilante groups to hunt down the refugees, whom they accuse of wrecking fences and killing animals.
Official SA policy does not recognise the Zimbabweans as refugees, hence the UN High Commission for Refugees cannot get involved.
Some unscrupulous farmers in the border areas have taken advantage of fleeing Zimbabweans for some time now, using their labour and then handing them over to the police as illegal immigrants when the time came to pay them.
* Meanwhile, Mugabe is increasingly handing over day-to-day running of the country to the military – sidelining his cabinet and civilian bureaucracy.
The Zimbabwean can reveal that the Joint Operations Command (JOC), a think tank of top security chiefs, now meets daily at Chaminuka House under the chairmanship of security minister Didymus Mutasa.
The JOC comprises General Constantine Chiwenga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces; Lieutenant General Phillip Valerio Sibanda, Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army; Air Marshall Perence Shiri of the Airforce, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and Happyton Bonyongwe, Director General of the spy agency, Central Intelligence Organisation.
Sources said Mugabe was planning to appoint even more army commanders to occupy the upper echelons of power.
They said the JOC has masterminded the crude policy to manipulate food in an attempt to deliver a credible performance for the ruling party in next year’s poll. The army is heavily involved in food distribution through the Operation Maguta initiative, itself the invention of the JOC. The controversial policy of banning food imports was also formulated by the JOC, according to our sources, as have a raft of legislation such as the spying bill and indigenisation laws. – Staff reporters