Where are you Simon Khaya Moyo?

Since some 1 000 Zimbabwean farm labourers were hounded out of their shacks more than 10 days ago, no official from the embassy in Pretoria has visited them in their makeshift home.

Braam Hanekom of refugee rights organisation People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) said last weekend that the only official contact had been made by MDC officials based in South Africa.

No Zimbabwe embassy official has been in contact with us although there was some communication from the MDC part of the government of national unity, he said.

International law, allows states to maintain diplomatic offices in foreign countries to take care of the sending nations interests and protect the rights of their nationals present on the territory of the host country.

This form of protection might take the form of ensuring that due process occurs when nationals of a state are arrested abroad. In the De Doorns incident, embassy officials could have ensured that the migrant workers were not arbitrary abused, that adequate shelter, food and amenities were provided.

De Doorns police chief Superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that an embassy official had contacted him by telephone.

Even when eight Zimbabweans were burnt to death in arson attack in February this year, someone from the embassy just telephoned but did not come down, he said.

Simon Khaya Moyo, a former Zanu PF cabinet minister heads the Zimbabwean mission to South Africa.

During last years countrywide xenophobic outbreak, the embassy was again slow in moving to protect Zimbabweans caught up in the violence.

Zimbabwean foreign missions are greatly inhibited in the operations by a crippling national economic crisis. Officials at the missions last year skipped salaries in some months because of a dearth of hard currencies in the Zimbabwean economy.