The co-ministers of Home Affairs were at pains recently to persuade Zimbabweans in South Africa to return home. They told their audience that it was now safe for exiled Zimbabweans to come back. Kembo Mohadi even went further and told the crowd that the police would consider dropping all charges against some Zimbabweans who had fled the country in fear of their lives.
While the ministers were desperately trying to weave their flights of fancy over a sceptical audience, hundreds of Zimbabweans were trekking through the bush on their way to cross the Limpopo River into South Africa in search of a better life.
Despite frequent xenophobic attacks against foreigners and the most dreadful persecution at the hands of the SA Police force, it seems thousands believe life in South Africa is still preferable to life in Zimbabwe.
The ministers grandiosely pledged to guarantee the safety of returning Zimbabweans, but they were silent about the fate that has befallen thousands of those who never fled the country, but who are being constantly victimised, denied food aid, arbitrarily arrested and threatened and sometimes hauled in by the police for questioning.
Anyone in doubt that these things are still happening need simply read any issue of The Zimbabwean week by week.
Journalist Stanley Kwenda fled Zimbabwe recently after being threatened by a senior official in the ministry of Home Affairs – Chrispen Makedenge. He is now in hiding in South Africa, afraid for his life. Does this assurance of safely apply to him too?
On Tuesday this week detectives from the Law and Order section, headed by Makedenge and falling under Mohadi and his MDC counterpart Giles Mutsekwas authority, disrupted the distribution of The Zimbabwean in central Harare. They arrested three drivers employed by the distribution company handling the newspaper. The men were held and questioned for three hours before being released without charge.
The same thing happened in Mbare three weeks ago. Distribution was again disrupted when police arrested members of the distributors staff and questioned them for several hours, before releasing them without charge.
For as long as this kind of thing goes on, Mohadi and Mutsekwa can talk until they are blue in the face. Nobody believes them.
They need to put their house in order first. That ministry has been and remains at the forefront of persecuting innocent Zimbabweans who refuse to toe the Zanu (PF) line.
Until this changes, Zimbabweans will continue to vote with their feet.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga