Turned away from SA consulate

Zimbabweans working, studying and doing business here have been given until December 31 to legalise their stay in the country. To be able to apply for the permits, the Zimbabweans must have passports, but those whose parents originally came from other countries say they have been turned away while trying to apply.

I was turned away at the Zimbabwean embassy and told to go home and apply for citizenship first because my father was born in Zambia, said a passport seeker, who was born and educated in Zimbabwe. The problem we have is that the officials deny to the media that they are asking people to go home. My biggest concern is that the citizenship only comes out after 6 months and the documentation program ends on December 31. Braam Hanekom of refugee rights group People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) confirmed this sad reality.

It is complex for us to deal with because it seems that the Zimbabwean government is reluctant to provide such people with citizenship, said Hanekom. It is clear that, in the struggle against the people, one tactic used by our elderly leadership has been to create divisions among our people. While we talk of xenophobia here and campaign for more rights for asylum seekers in South Africa we must recognize that the Zimbabwean government is far more xenophobic that the South African government.

He said it was sad that the Zimbabwean government was denying people their citizenship just because of their foreign-born parents. He advised those with asylum seeker documents and those with refugee status should hold on to their Section 22 permits.

People with these documents are still allowed to remain in South Africa, but those who had a section 22 document (asylum seekers) and have already been rejected refugee status will be in trouble after the moratorium has been lifted. People who are on the asylum seekers status are awaiting their refugee status determination (where they decide to reject or accept your claim for refugee status), will also be in trouble if rejected, but at a later stage.

I fear that most of those affected will struggle to get citizenship in Zimbabwe. However, it is probably so corrupt that anyone can get citizenship for a big bribe. Within many states, the rhetoric of sovereignty has been used to deem certain citizens unworthy and in Zimbabwe itself, shifting legal and rhetorical definitions of who is an authentic citizen have been a noteworthy phenomenon at different points in its past and present. Pre-independence, racist divisions were defined in statutes and enforced, causing forced resettlements and hierarchies of worth among citizens, said Hanekom.

Efforts to get a comment from Zimbabwean Consul-General, Chris Mapanga, were unsuccessful, but Professor Welshman Ncube of the smaller MDC formation recently told The Zimbabwean in Johannesburg that all those born in Zimbabwe should not be affected by the citizenship crisis. People who are born in Zimbabwe are citizens by birth and should not need to renounce any citizenship, whether their parents renounced theirs or not, said Ncube.