MDC-M seeks blanket amnesty

The MDC-M has held a series of meetings with South Africas Immigration department, in its endeavour to persuade authorities in the neighbouring country to grant a blanket amnesty to over 5 000 Zimbabweans who have had their illegally-acquired South African passports seized and cancelled by the neighbouring country since December last year.

The meetings have so far attracted partial concessions from the South African authorities, who say that they are prepared to grant amnesty to a select section of the Zimbabweans, while arresting and deporting those who do not qualify. The MDC, which seeks to have a blanket and unconditional amnesty, has thus, decided to go the political route and in April wrote to the ANC, requesting a meeting with Gwede Mentashe, the South African ruling partys Secretary General.

However, Ngqabutho Dube, the Zimbabwean partys Secretary for South Africa, revealed that they had been granted a meeting with South Africas Deputy Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba. The meeting was confirmed by the South African government this week and will be held inside the Union Building in Pretoria on Thursday morning, Dube told The Zimbabwean in his Braamfontein offices late last week.

The purpose of the meeting has not changed and we will discuss the issue regarding South African documents being held by Zimbabweans and those that have already been confiscated because we believe that there can be an amicable solution to this issue.

The MDC argues in the proposal that the South African government should explore further the mass exodus of Zimbabweans to that country, in order to understand the push factors for many to leave their country of origin.

The MDC believes that if the South African government were to declare amnesty for all Zimbabwean holders of South African documents (ID, passports) and alter them to bear their country of origin as Zimbabwe, many Zimbabweans would come forward.