Zimbabwean Dispensation,Special and Exemption Permits in South Africa: On Humanitarian Logic,Depoliticisation and Invisibilisation of Migrants

Abstract

Cross-border migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa has existed for a long time. Given this context, the governance of migrants, especially the undocumented Zimbabweans by South Africa, has come to the fore. Starting in 2009, South Africa granted undocumented Zimbabwean migrants Zimbabwean Dispensation Permits, which were replaced by Zimbabwean Special Dispensation Permits in 2014. In turn, the Zimbabwean Special Dispensation Permits were replaced by Zimbabwean Exemption Permits in September 2017. Although these are steps in the right direction, the changes in the conditions of these permits demonstrates humanitarian logic, which depoliticises and excludes the affected migrants.

Keywords

Undocumented migration Zimbabwean Dispensation permits Zimbabwean Special Permits Zimbabwean Exemption Permits South Africa

Introduction

Since the 19th century, labour migration from Zimbabwe among other countries, to South Africa has been a common feature of migration in the Southern African region (Crush et al., 2005; Wentzel 2003). But, two phases of migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa can be identified in the period since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. In the early 1980s, a number of white skilled and semi-skilled workers, uncertain about their role in the newly independent Zimbabwe, migrated to various countries including South Africa. Recently, a deteriorating economic and political situation in the country has given rise to significant migration flows (Crush and Tevera, 2010; Tevera and Zinyama, 2002). In the early 1990s, the declining economic situation that followed the introduction of an Economic and Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) yielded a significant number of Zimbabweans who migrated to South Africa (Tevera and Zinyama, 2002). With the intention of resuscitating economic growth in Zimbabwe, ESAP was defined by strategies such as the liberalisation of trade, monetary, fiscal and public enterprise reforms, budget deficit reductions and government non-interference in investment, and labour and pricing mechanisms (Sachikonye, 1999).

Instead of triggering economic growth, this neoliberal economic model weakened industrial production and growth and culminated in the closure of industries, retrenchments, and unemployment (Brett, 2005; Dhemba, 1999; Sachikonye, 1999). ESAP had these deleterious consequences because, among others, it led to a ‘high level of foreign borrowing’, contributed to ‘domestic recession’, ‘higher import costs’, and a reduction in wages (Sachikonye, 1999: 11). A more recent decline in the Zimbabwean economy has been attributed to the land reform programme, which involved the expropriation of land by the government from white commercial farmers (Raftopoulos, 2006). This is because industries linked to farming closed down, leading to withdrawal of investments, unemployment, and general economic malaise and paralysis (Fontein, 2009), forcing many Zimbabweans to migrate to countries like South Africa. This most recent phase of migration involved a substantial movement of people from Zimbabwe to South Africa (Crush and Tevera, 2010), with some studies (Araia, 2009; International Organisation for Migration, 2010; Mdlongwa and Moyo, 2014; Ndlovu, 2013) suggesting that this included significant numbers of undocumented migrants. Although media reports (Gasa, 2009; Mlambo, 2014; Seale and Tromp, 2009) and some studies (Hammerstad, 2011; Scheen, 2011) estimate very high migration rates, statistical data relating to cross-border migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa is either difficult to get or, at best, inaccurate (Rutherford, 2010). Notwithstanding, it seems settled that there is a significant number of Zimbabweans in South Africa (Krieger, 2010).

The migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa has involved those who are documented and those who are not. In this paper, I focus more on the latter for the simple reason that I want to debate their treatment (being granted special permits) in South Africa, as bordering on exclusion, which in the long term does not help their condition of being undocumented. If in the short and long term they become undocumented because of the conditions of the special permits under discussion, they could still migrate to South Africa by illegally crossing the crocodile-infested Limpopo River (which forms a natural boundary between Limpopo Province in Northern South Africa and Southern Zimbabwe), at Beitbridge, in the process of which woman are raped and killed,¹ among other negative consequences that accompany this type of migration. On this basis, the issue of the treatment and/or management of undocumented migrants becomes an important topic in migration debates involving countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe that not only share a long history of migration and contiguous borders and borderlands, but are also members of Southern African Development Community (SADC). The latter is involved in the regional integration project, which should lead to the free movement of people in the region (Southern African Development Community, 1992; 2005), ultimately resulting in the ‘elimination’ of borders.

To illuminate the governance of undocumented Zimbabweans in South Africa, this paper discusses South Africa’s selective immigration regime. Concerning this selective immigration regime, I deploy the concept of the humanitarian logic, in a consideration of the extent to which immigration laws and policies in South Africa demonstrate what Fassin (2012) refers to, as the humanitarian reason, which hides the Draconian intentions of immigration legislation in the management of unwanted migrants. With specific reference to undocumented Zimbabwean migrants, the paper considers the extent to which the permits issued under the Zimbabwean Dispensation Permits (DZPs) project in 2009 and the more stringent conditions attached to the subsequent Zimbabwean Special Dispensation Permits (ZSPs) in 2014 and similar permits that followed, can be seen as

…a form of cynicism at play when one deploys the language of moral sentiments at the same time as implementing policies that increase social inequality, measures that restrict the rights of immigrant populations… in this view, the language of humanitarianism would be no more than a smoke screen that plays on sentiment in order to impose the law of the market and the brutality of realpolitik (Fassin, 2012: 2).

This brings to the fore the contradictions of the humanitarian government (Benhabib, 2014). Humanitarian reasoning leads to governments justifying new limitations on migrant rights along with more extensive deportation practices. It has also given rise to the admission of migrants into host societies ‘with a kind of secondary citizenship only, they are permitted, but not necessarily welcome. Humanitarian discourse enables us to acknowledge these contradictions without necessarily addressing them’ (Reid-Henry, 2013: 756). Viewed through the lens of the humanitarian logic, this paper attempts to show that at the centre of the DZP, ZSP, and Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEPs) projects is the underlying objective to ensure that Zimbabwean migrants leave South Africa and go back to Zimbabwe. To achieve this, the paper is organised as follows: after this introduction is a consideration of the data collection procedures, followed by a discussion of the theoretical framework. There is then a discussion of the general South African immigration policies and a specific case of the response to undocumented Zimbabweans. After this is an analysis of the empirical findings of the study. This paper concludes by highlighting that there appears to be the deployment of humanitarian logic in the management of undocumented migrants from Zimbabwe.

This not only works against the SADC regional integration project on the subject of the free movement of people in the region, but also that the mere fact of displacing the undocumented Zimbabwean migrants from one temporary visa with stringent conditions to another for extended periods of time, constructs these migrants as temporary visitors and depoliticises them – an act of exclusion. Further, if this is considered from an intra-African migration point of view, the tenuous migration status of such undocumented migrants illustrates serious problems (if not a crisis, comparable to African migrants being barred from migrating to Europe across the Mediterranean), in the ways that undocumented migrants are managed. For the reason that this happens between and within SADC Member States (as guided by the founding principles as enshrined in the Southern African Development Community, 1992), the possibility of re-examining the stringent conditions of permits like ZEP as part of the solution to managing migration and thus contributing to free movement in the region is also briefly debated.

Data collection procedures

A total of 65 Zimbabwean migrants were interviewed at the Beitbridge border, in Musina (a South African town situated approximately 17 km from the Beitbridge border) and Johannesburg (the largest city in South Africa, situated approximately 521 km from the Beitbridge border post) between December 2014 and March 2015. At the border, 12 migrants were interviewed, of which three were females and nine were males. At Musina, a total number of 34 migrants were interviewed and 19 were women and 15 were men. In Johannesburg, 19 migrants were interviewed of which 13 were men and six were women. Out of all these interviewees, only four crossed the border on their own and 61 were smuggled. A clear majority (56) of the Zimbabwean migrants were between the ages of 21 and 49 years, seven were between the age of 17 and 20 years, and only two were above 50 years. Although there was a minor challenge relating to accessing the interviewees, a human smuggler known to local persons directed the researcher to areas in Musina, Beitbridge, and Johannesburg, where smuggled people could be found.

This means that non-probability sampling was used in the recruitment of respondents for this study. In particular, the respondents were purposively selected following a snowball sampling technique. The important point therefore is that the selected respondents provided cases that were carefully explored in an attempt to illuminate the focus of this paper, through an ‘orientation towards the in-depth, multi-aspect and holistic investigation of one or a small number of instances’ (Iosifides, 2011: 202). The interviews centred on issues relating, but not limited to reasons for migrating to South Africa, their perception of the South African immigration, particularly the DZP and ZSP programmes. The rationale was to explore the experiential circumstances of the people affected by these policies, hence interviewing officials at the South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) was considered unimportant in terms of yielding any new insights beyond the policy statement around the DZP and ZSP project. Musina and Johannesburg were chosen as sites for this study because the former is the South African town closest to the Zimbabwean border whereas the latter is ‘a quintessentially migrant city’ (Crush, 2008: 280).

Theoretical considerations

To analyse the response of the South African government to the case of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants, I utilise the concept of humanitarian government in order to provide an analytical framework. A humanitarian government is one that ‘designate(s) the deployment of moral sentiments in contemporary politics’, it puts in place ‘actions conducted in order to manage, regulate and support the existence of human beings’ (Fassin, 2012: 1). At the centre of the humanitarian government ‘is a new moral economy of suffering … this new moral economy represents not simply a way of relating to human suffering, but a mode of governing it’ (Reid-Henry, 2013: 756). In this way, ‘humanitarianism has become the language that inextricably links values and affects, and serves both to define and to justify discourses and practices of the government of human beings’ (Fassin, 2012: 2). Most significantly, humanitarian government/logic is used as a facade in attempts aimed at limiting or excluding groups of people and especially unwanted migrants (Fassin, 2012).

Before I consider in detail, in the analysis section, the Zimbabwean case, I will use two examples from the French government in an attempt to illustrate the operation of the humanitarian logic. First, in 2002, following a visit to the Sangatte transit camp,² the French Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, used humanitarian reasons to close the camp (Fassin, 2012). After a visit to Sangatte, the Minister noted that immigrants were living in inhumane conditions and, as a result, the camp needed to be closed. ‘The paradox being that the centre opened ostensibly for humanitarian purposes, was now being closed down on the same grounds. In both cases, the publicly stated compassion was just a step away from hidden repression’ (Fassin, 2012: 134). This occurred in the context in which the French government, elected to power in 2002, were concerned about the levels of inward migration into France. The second example relates to the Cambodian-registered ship that sank off the French coast on 17 February 2001, in which 900 migrants rescued from the ship before it sank were thought to be en route to other European countries (Fassin 2012). The French government used the poor conditions on board the ship to demonstrate how inhumane illegal immigration was and to highlight that it was criminal in nature. Fassin (2012: 135) situates the French government’s response as ‘compassionate repression’ (Fassin, 2012: 135). The French government portrayed their clampdown on immigration as a way to protect potential migrants from the harm of illegal migration and human smuggling. Repression was in the best interests of actual and potential immigrants as it was a way to ‘protect’ them.

As a consequence, the French government argued that it had to adopt stringent and repressive immigration controls to ensure that similar humanitarian disasters would not occur in the future. As Fassin (2012: 149) notes: ‘This is probably an indication of the contemporary political shift. In order to revalorise asylum, it has to be articulated with humanitarian reason’. Thus, ‘hardened borders are moralised borders too, … the movement of individuals from one moral zone to another may be discouraged by the very logic of altruism itself’ (Reid-Henry, 2013: 756). Concerning the DZP, ZSP and similar projects, this paper analyses if they were inspired by humanitarian logic, namely, among other reasons, to stop deportations of and allow undocumented Zimbabweans to work and live in South Africa, but perhaps with the intention of finally forcing these migrants to go back to Zimbabwe. On this basis, interview data with such Zimbabwean migrants is used to interrogate the extent to which immigration laws and policies in South Africa such as the DZP, ZSP, and ZEP projects demonstrate what Fassin (2012: 133) refers to as ‘ambivalent hospitality’ in ‘governing the unwanted’.

This interrogation should be seen within the context that these categories of special permits for Zimbabweans in South Africa have attracted research interest. For example, Bimha (2017), has assessed these programmes and highlighted their positive aspects such as reducing pressure on the asylum and refugee system and negative issues such as, among others, their lack of gender sensitivity. Polzer (2009) has argued that the special permits were a positive step by the South African government to deal with the scale and magnitude of the migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa:

…the new set of policies regularising movement between South Africa and Zimbabwe represents a positive shift towards a rational, coherent and regionally beneficial migration management approach. Previous approaches to managing Zimbabwean migration (including the asylum system and widespread arrest and detention) did not address the nature or scale of movement and so resulted in high levels of illegal migration, rights abuses, and negative impacts for South Africa (Polzer, 2009: 2).

Further, Amit and Kriger (2014) have highlighted the contradictory logic of the project in terms of the fact that the DHA seemed not to be committed to its full execution. This is because

[the] DHA practice alternated between restricting access to the regularisation scheme and taking steps to reduce these barriers. In the end, the small scope and limited duration of the Zimbabwe Documentation Project suggests that it was less about expanding regularisation options than about providing some sort of justification for resuming deportations (Amit and Kriger, 2014: 290).

Stated differently, the DZP was ultimately aimed at deporting Zimbabweans from South Africa. For those who did not yet have these permits (which were supposedly freely extended to Zimbabweans), obtaining these permits was not a given due to administrative barriers. From the point of view of Amit and Kriger (2014), the DZP project was not innocent in so far as there was the search for a reason to deport undocumented Zimbabweans from South Africa. I situate my paper within these researches, by expanding the critique of the special permits for Zimbabweans in South Africa. Viewed through the lens of humanitarian logic, I advance the view that the DZP, ZSP, and similar projects were not ‘innocent’ attempts at documenting Zimbabweans in South Africa. I argue that not much is humanitarian about the seemingly humanitarian gesture of the permits in question, because of the conditions that these permits have required. I will return to this point in the analysis section.

South African immigration policies

South Africa, like any sovereign state that attracts a significant number of migrants, has chosen to grant work permits to skilled migrants (Peberdy, 2009). This can be seen in the successive Immigration Acts and Amendments, Bills and Regulations, such as the Immigration Act 13 of 2002 (Republic of South Africa, 2002), as amended by Immigration Act of 2004 (Republic of South Africa, 2004); Immigration Act of 2007 (Republic of South Africa, 2007); Immigration Amendment Bill of 2010 (Republic of South Africa, 2010); the Immigration Amendment Act of 2011 (Republic of South Africa, 2011); and Immigration Regulations 2014 (Republic of South Africa, 2014). In this way, the South African immigration regime is selective; only those deemed beneficial to the country may be admitted (Peberdy, 2009). This may be the reason why such a class of unskilled migrants attempt to regularise their stay in South Africa by applying for asylum or refugee status. But, obtaining these permits tends to be difficult, because the DHA assumes that migrants who apply for these permits are in the country illegally in the first instance (Amit and Kriger, 2014). It is for this reason that

the DHA has actively worked to limit documentation, employing a variety of administrative procedures to make it exceedingly difficult for migrants to obtain documentation or to acquire refugee status. This means that those migrants excluded by either immigration regime or the asylum or refugee permits may choose to live as undocumented migrants in South Africa. What is significant and worth reiteration in this context is that, the rationale of the South African immigration legislation is exclusive, both in terms of conditions and requirements (Peberdy, 2009) and in the case of deliberate administrative complications, which may make permits inaccessible (Amit and Kriger, 2014) … Even the ZDP [Zimbabwe Documentation Project], the scheme targeting undocumented Zimbabweans, was accompanied by significant administrative barriers’ (Amit and Kriger, 2014: 270).

What seems to emerge from this narrative is that the selectivity of South African immigration manifests in many different ways. One is in the use of skills and the targeting of migrants from African discussed in detail by Peberdy (2009). Concerning this, the author concludes that ‘as the South African state has moved to construct a diverse, but inclusive nation, its immigration anxieties have become similarly inclusive. South Africa’s new national identity as constructed by the state while supposedly African, is actually firmly South African’ (Peberdy 2009: 168). There is a wealth of literature that has adequately demonstrated the South African government’s resistance to immigrants from African countries, and this need not detain me here (see e.g. Crush, 1996, 1998, 2000; Crush and McDonald, 2001; Crush and Tawodzera, 2011, 2014; Kalule-Sabiti et al., 2012; Landau, 2005, 2006, 2007; Landau and Freemantle, 2010; Moyo, 2017; Neocosmos, 2006, 2008; Nyamnjoh, 2006, 2007; Peberdy, 2009). The other is the use of administrative obstacles as outlined by Amit and Kriger (2014). To these, I add humanitarian logic, which grants migrants secondary citizenship, and which depoliticises, invisibilises, and intentionally or unintentionally places, such people on the margins of the host society.

In this context, a specific comment on the South African–Zimbabwean immigration policy is necessary. In 2009, the South African government approved permits for Zimbabweans under the DZP project, which allowed Zimbabweans to work, conduct business and study in South Africa. The objectives of the DZPs were: to regularise undocumented Zimbabweans, curb the deportation of undocumented Zimbabweans, reduce pressure on the asylum and refugee system, and provide an amnesty to Zimbabweans who had obtained fraudulent South African documents (Gigaba, 2014a). A brief background to these Zimbabwean special permits is needful. The significant issue to address is what motivated the South African government to extend these permits. Bimha (2017) posits that political and economic considerations played an important role. First, as a result of the political situation in Zimbabwe due to the disputed 2008 elections, many Zimbabweans were uprooted and lost their livelihoods, with the result that they migrated to South Africa to seek economic recourse. Second, when these Zimbabweans arrived in South Africa and given that most of them could not get regular work permits on the basis that they did not qualify, they decided to apply for asylum and refugee status. Not only was it difficult to determine or authenticate victims of political persecution from Zimbabwe, the numbers of Zimbabweans applying for these permits was high. This exceeded what the South African government could deal with at the level of asylum and refugee permits. This raised the need for a special response to the undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa and hence the DZPs and ZSPs (Bimha, 2017). To this can be added the fact that Zimbabwe and South Africa enjoy cordial relations, sharing a long history of cross-border migration and the struggle against colonialism and apartheid (Bimha, 2017). Further, and in terms of enhancing human mobility in the SADC region, South Africa has always preferred bilateral agreements with neighbouring countries, based on the Joint Permanent Commissions of Cooperation (Nshimbi and Fioramonti, 2014). This, then, should be the basis for bilateral migration agreements such as the DZP, ZSP, and ZEP with Zimbabwe, and more recently, Lesotho Special Permits with Lesotho. Historically and geopolitically, therefore, the South African government had to do something about the numbers of undocumented Zimbabweans in South Africa, in the form of the DZP and ZSP. Consequently, it is estimated that approximately 295,000 Zimbabweans applied for DZPs, approximately 245,000 of which were issued (Gigaba, 2014a). As the DZPs were due to expire at the end of December 2014, The Minister of Home Affairs (Malusi Gigaba) announced on 12 August 2014 that these permits would be replaced by ZSP documents.

Similar to the DZP, the ZSP were temporary residence permits that allowed Zimbabweans to live, work, conduct business and study in South Africa. They expired at the end of 2017 (Gigaba, 2014a). The Minister of Home Affairs noted that ‘the ZSP [was] a temporary bridge to the near future when all Zimbabweans will re-enter the mainstream immigration process in South Africa’ (Gigaba, 2014a). However, unlike the DZP, there were several conditions attached to the ZSP. Most importantly, the permit was non-renewable and the permit holder did not qualify for permanent residence on the basis of the time spent in South Africa on this permit. On the expiry of the ZSPs, Zimbabweans were required to leave and return home to apply for work or other permits in South Africa without a guarantee that these will be granted to them.³ Given the conditions that were attached to the ZSPs, the views of their holders will shed important insights in the analysis part of this paper.

Notwithstanding, it needs to be noted that in September 2017, the Minister of Home Affairs Professor Hlengiwe Mkhize announced the replacement of the ZSPs by a new category of permits (called ‘ZEPs’), which was extended to Zimbabweans for four years up to December 2021. Although these permits entitle holders to work or conduct business in South Africa, they are not entitled to apply for permanent residence in South Africa. In addition, because these permits are not renewable or extendable, their conditions cannot be changed as long as the holder is in South Africa (Mkhize, 2017). Even though the data that forms the main argument of this paper was collected from ZSP holders before the announcement by the Minister of Home Affairs in September 2017, it needs to be mentioned that the conditions of the new ZEPs are actually a consolidation of the ZSP conditions. For instance, ZEP holders cannot change the conditions of their permits while in South Africa (suggesting that they must go back to Zimbabwe at the expiration of the permits), and they cannot apply for permanent residence, despite the fact that they would have officially lived in South Africa for 11 years when the ZEP expires on 31 December 2021. The similarity between the ZSP and ZEP not only amplifies the fears and anxieties of their recipients concerning the former but, as detailed in the following sections, also implies the same about the latter.

Undocumented Zimbabwean migrants and the operations of humanitarian logic

Interview data suggests that, although the DZP and ZSP and similar programmes were designed to document Zimbabweans in South Africa, these same permits may be used to exclude them because of the conditions that they carry (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015). These conditions included the stringent requirements to go back to and apply from Zimbabwe for what were called mainstream permits, when these permits expired (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 3 March 2015). One respondent argued that it was not necessary for them to go to Zimbabwe, if the objective was to make them apply for mainstream permits. He asserted that ‘is it not suspicious that one has to go back to and apply for a permit in Zimbabwe, when they are already in South Africa? After all, we did not apply for the DZP in Zimbabwe, but here in South Africa’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 10 January 2015). The respondent added:

I think that it sounds like a clever way of telling a visitor how much you want them to stay and at the same time telling them to go away the following morning. I don’t see the logic, unless the logic is that, when one goes back to Zimbabwe, they apply for and when they don’t get a visa, they must stay there and never bother to come back, which will be a different case if the application was done in South Africa, as we will simply stay undocumented with expired visas, which could put the South African government under pressure to extend the permits (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 10 January 2015).

Putting aside the issue of the hassle of traveling to and applying for permits from Zimbabwe, there was no guarantee that the Zimbabweans in question would be granted the mainstream permits, ‘because the requirements on these permits are too high’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015). The effect of this, is that, ‘if one is not granted the permit through the mainstream immigration system, they become undesirable migrants open to arrest, detention and deportation should they enter South Africa without complete immigration documents’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015). In this vein, it appears as if ‘these special permit projects aim to ensure that Zimbabwean migrants return to Zimbabwe, without considering whether or not the migrants in question really want to go back. I personally have built a life here in South Africa and not Zimbabwe’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 12 January 2015). As a result, some Zimbabweans declared that the current ZSPs ‘do not seem to be special after all, because they can be interpreted as a mechanism to finally get rid of Zimbabweans’ (Interview with Zimbabwean migrant worker, Messina, 5 January 2015).

One of the reasons for the DZP was to reduce pressure on the asylum and refugee system which was getting chocked by the many Zimbabweans who had applied (Bimha, 2017). But, if truly humanitarian grounds were applied to the asylum and refugee system (even if it was under immense pressure), it meant that all Zimbabweans who had applied should have been considered or most would have qualified. This meant that a huge number of Zimbabweans would have been regularised or at least documented based on the extraordinary circumstances in their country of origin. However, granting all Zimbabweans who had applied for these permits would have been even more problematic. Likewise, there was a limit to true humanitarianism in dealing with the high numbers of Zimbabwean migrants in relationship to granting them asylum and refugee permits. This is why it was hard for South African officials to accept the many Zimbabweans as refugees and use the country’s refugee laws to deal with them. Indeed, Amit and Kriger (2014) note that Zimbabweans constitute the highest proportion of asylum seekers in South Africa, but very few obtain refugee status.

Accordingly, there was need for a special response, in the form of DZP and ZSP, for example (Bimha, 2017). Consequently, placing Zimbabweans on ‘the short term permits would ensure that these permits could be closed at the discretion of the government and Zimbabwean migrants would be required to go back to Zimbabwe’. (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 10 January 2015). The implication of this is that the same could not be done, were a huge number of Zimbabweans granted refugee status. Where is the humanitarian logic in all this? The point has been made in the preceding sections that, humanitarian logic as advanced by Fassin (2012), does not involve an innocent humanitarian act. States or governments use moral or humanitarian sentiments to actually implement policies that widen inequality. In other words, the language of humanitarianism is a smokescreen, which hides the true intentions of the policies, which, in some cases may increase repression or deportation of immigrants. Therefore, based on the sentiments of the Zimbabwean respondents, humanitarian logic is implied by the conditions that were attached to the DZPs and ZSPs, for instance. This means that it was more than just trying to assist the Zimbabweans, ‘but also in the final analysis ensure that they return to their country of origin’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 10 January 2015). The sentiments of the respondents clearly question the motives of the South African government on many fronts. If ‘the objective was to allow the undocumented migrants to work study and live in South Africa, why introduce conditions that work against a supposedly compassionate programme? (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 3 February 2015). If the humanitarian act is complicated by conditions ‘which may make life difficult for the intended beneficiaries of the act’, it ceases to be a true gesture of kindness (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 3 February 2015). In this sense, the language of humanitarianism is used as the means to harshly deal with the undocumented migrants which, in the final analysis, is a façade ‘that plays on sentiment in order to impose the law of the market and the brutality of realpolitik’ (Fassin, 2012: 2). One is reminded of the observation by Amit and Kriger (2014) that, when the DZP project was launched, there were some barriers in accessing the permits, and the focus then was not so much on documentation than it was on deportation. Those who failed to even apply to get the DZP were to be deported.

As a result, if special permits expire, Zimbabweans will be required to travel to Zimbabwe and apply for these. But, there are many barriers that are in the way of these Zimbabweans to actually get the permits, and so the lack of permits by Zimbabweans will be used as the reason by DHA to arrest, detain and deport them. Consequently, taking cognisance of and after exploring the broader political and economic motivations for these special permits, as I have attempted to do in this paper, one still sees the objective as being to make Zimbabweans go back to their country, even if the migrants themselves ‘want to live in South Africa’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 10 January 2015). Although it is understood that the broader political and economic situation in Zimbabwe and South Africa provided a context for these permits, the conditions of the same seem to suggest the desire to send the migrants back to Zimbabwe when these permits expire. That this seems to be the case actually amplifies my argument about the underling humanitarian logic contained in the permits in question. Although the DZP and ZSP and similar programmes are examples of projects whose aim was to deal with the complex reality of undocumented migration, it has within its restrictions that which may undermine one of its key aims – namely the provision of legal documentation to undocumented Zimbabweans. In the words of Fassin (2012: 14), this could be taken to ‘account for the emergence of compassion as an ambiguous principle underlying the politics towards the disadvantaged […], in its actual practice of the exercise of repression’.

This seems to show parallels with the French example of the closure of Sangatte camp in 2000 and the case of the Cambodian ship off the French Coast in 2001. For instance, although the DZPs and ZSPs were granted on humanitarian grounds, they can also be withdrawn on the same grounds – that Zimbabweans must apply for ‘better’ mainstream permits (which they have always failed to qualify for, and going back to and applying from Zimbabwe, will not suddenly make them meet the stringent requirements – Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015) and not come back as illegal migrants because they will be arrested and deported. Yet there is no guarantee that ‘one would be granted such a permit’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015). The humanitarian logic is that the special permits will actually or potentially be used to send the migrants in question back to Zimbabwe. This might ‘have been the intention of the DHA when they crafted the conditions of the permits, than to document and make us live in South Africa’ (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 13 January 2015). On the basis that the conditions of the ZSP are the same as the ZEP project, the same logic can be applied to the latter, when they expire in December 2021.

Within the same context, a comment on ZEP is needful. The Minister of Home Affairs declared, in her press statement in September 2017, that the ZEP programme was inspired by the ‘spirit of international solidarity […and ] the imperative to build peace and friendship on the continent and in the world’ (Mkhize, 2017), but one still detects the operation of the humanitarian logic in the ZEP programme on the point that Zimbabweans should go back to Zimbabwe when the exemption permits expire, no matter how long they have stayed in South Africa (even if the Zimbabweans concerned have built lives in South Africa for a period of no less than a decade). In this case, humanitarian logic suggests that the South African government has tried to temporarily accommodate Zimbabweans during the height of their country’s economic and other crises. But now, compassion can be withdrawn, and those without immigration documents (after the withdrawal of compassion in the form of different types of temporary permits) can be arrested and deported. In this way, the harsh treatment of such Zimbabwean migrants will be the legitimate and logical action to follow by the South African government! Viewed through the lenses of humanitarian reason, such actions by the South African government will be seen as being good for both the actual and potential undocumented Zimbabwean migrants, as it will stop them from engaging in an illegal type of migration! Those from whom compassion has been withdrawn have no basis for complaining, because it was an extension of ‘favor’ in the first place. Fassin (2012: 4) notes ‘those at the receiving end of humanitarian attention know quite well that they are expected to show the humility of the beholden rather than express demands for rights’. In this way, ‘humanitarianism is not just something where good intentions become something else, but something, that is itself a governmental logic’ (Reid-Henry, 2013: 756). It demonstrates the dialectics between hospitality and hostility, the contradiction between hospitality and ambivalence (Fassin, 2012).

Beyond this, there is an important theoretical question that needs to be raised concerning the impact on undocumented Zimbabwean migrants of shuttling them from one dispensation permit to the other. As noted in the preceding sections, this started with the DZP in 2009, and then the ZSP in 2014, and now the ZEP programme that was launched by the Minister of Home Affairs in September 2017. I would argue that at the centre of these temporary permits is exclusion, which is couched in the language of humanitarianism and African and global solidarity. One sees parallels with the study of Australia by Robertson (2015). In this Australian study, it was established that migrants were moved from one temporary visa to another, with no guarantee of permanent residence, the effect of which placed migrants in an undefined immigration status (Robertson, 2015). This is because

a migrant could spend 3 years on a student visa, 2 years on a 485 temporary graduate visa and then 4 years on a 457 temporary skilled visa […which] means that non-citizens often spend extended periods living and working in Australia with a series of precarious statuses (Robertson, 2015: 939).

The important point about the Australian example is that these several categories of temporary permits have a ‘patchworks of rights and belonging’, which are always changing, thus ultimately placing migrants ‘in precarious situations’ (Robertson, 2015: 939–940). The objective in invoking the Australian example is to illuminate the argument that I am making in this paper, which is: theoretically, we see the ad hoc management and depoliticisation and invisibilisation of undocumented migrants such as Zimbabweans in South Africa. This is because ZEP, like the DZP and ZSP programmes, constructs Zimbabwean migrants as people who are temporary sojourners in South Africa, who should celebrate and be grateful that they were ‘welcomed’ and granted permits in the first instance. As temporary sojourners, they should expect and look forward to going back to Zimbabwe, inasmuch as they cannot expect and make claims to belong to South Africa, because they are just visitors. This is where and how I see exclusion. Although it is accepted that the permits in question allowed Zimbabwean migrants to, among others, work and conduct business in South Africa, and may indeed have presented opportunities for these migrants, this was only for a certain period of time, after which there are no guarantees of being in South Africa. This could be seen as exclusion from belonging. Added to this is that the very construction of these migrants as short-term visitors who should go back to and apply for permits from Zimbabwe is an act of exclusion and marginalisation, especially when migrants themselves want to stay in the country. Exclusion and marginalisation should not be seen as a sudden and one-off event, but as a process that started when the conditions on the permits were designed to the final point that, when these expire, their holders must go back to Zimbabwe, leaving behind their jobs and businesses and indeed, give up on their opportunities. This constitutes exclusion of migrants because they are granted ‘with a kind of secondary citizenship only, they are permitted, but not necessarily welcome’ (Reid-Henry, 2013: 756). The conditions on the DZP, ZSP, and ZEP appear to show that the migrants in questions are permitted, but only for a certain period of time, and are not welcome – this is the very act of exclusion. If they come back without mainstream permits (which are difficult to get), they will be arrested and deported or else live in South Africa as undocumented citizens. This is the exercise and effect of exclusion, which may lead to migrants living marginal lives.

Based on the interview data with the ZSP holders, it is known that Zimbabwean migrants have built a life in South Africa, and the permits may even be targeting permanent residence (contrary to the temporary sojourner construct, which depoliticises and invisibilises them), which is also an act of exclusion. Such Zimbabweans asserted that there was no life for them in Zimbabwe, as they had been in South Africa for a long period of time (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015). Further, one respondent added that:

the mere fact that I do not have a certain future in a country where I have stayed for longer periods of time and chosen to build a future for my children, does not give me in inner peace and hope. I keep hoping, for the best, because my life is in South Africa (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 14 January 2015).

For these Zimbabweans, going back to Zimbabwe was not an option and they felt the requirement for them go and apply for permits from Zimbabwe were tantamount to directly and/or indirectly chasing them from South Africa (Interview with a ZSP holder, Johannesburg, 28 February 2015).

Thus, at the expiry of their permits, if they cannot meet the conditions of the mainstream permits, this means they must stay in Zimbabwe against their will. Such people are set to be uprooted and in this, I see exclusion and marginalisation. On this basis, it would appear as if Zimbabweans were and continue to be privileged to be granted the special and exemption permits on humanitarian grounds, yet the same permits seem to ultimately disadvantage them on, for example, the idea that they cannot apply for a more permanent form of residence, but must go back to and apply from Zimbabwe for mainstream immigration permits, without a guarantee that they will be granted such permits. The language that they can apply for mainstream permits, whose conditions are stringent as discussed in the preceding sections, sounds like the language that was used when DZP was launched. Amit and Kriger (2014) notes that Zimbabwean migrants were told to apply for DZPs, but there were barriers. This was followed by deportations. I still see the same logic, in that when the special permits expire, Zimbabwean must go to and apply for mainstream permits from Zimbabwe; and if they fail to get these, they must not come back to South Africa, because they will be arrested and deported. Therefore, ‘whether this shift stems from sincerity or cynicism on the part of the actors involved, whether it manifests genuine empathy or manipulates compassion’ is another question (Fassin, 2012: 7).

But, it is noteworthy that this is the disciplining hand of the humanitarian logic – the beneficiaries from an act of humanitarianism should not demand or expect more in the form of, for example, permanent residence. It is in this sense that the manner in which DZP and ZSP and the ZEP projects in relation to undocumented Zimbabweans migrants could be considered as demonstrating ambivalent hospitality and the contradictory logic of hostility and hospitality (Fassin, 2012). Although it is accepted that it is standard practice for countries receiving a significant number of migrants to implement policies that limit the rights of migrants and thus protect citizens, in the SADC region this is problematic for the simple reason that this coexists with and assaults the drive towards regional integration. As enshrined in the Declaration and Treaty of SADC (see Southern African Development Community, 1992, Article 5.2, a–j), SADC Member States should implement policies that engender regional integration. Although regional integration is a broader concept and process, human mobility is an integral part of it. What is implied in the regional integration drive (including social, economic, cultural, and political aspects) is the desire to reduce the impact of the border and thus establish a regional citizenry (see Southern African Development Community, 1992). It should also be remembered that SADC is one of the Regional Economic Communities that should provide a pillar for the African Economic Community in 2028 (African Economic Community, (1991), which in turn should provide a foundation for a united Africa by 2063 (Agenda 2063, 2014).

Against this backdrop, this contribution should neither be confused for an essay on political activism nor a polemical piece with the intention of condemning the South African immigration regime and policies. Quite to the contrary, the intention of this paper is to break from the popular debates and condemnation of the South African immigration, and insert the intra-Africa migration conundrums into global debates around issues of migration and/or immigration management and regulation. The objective in this regard is to highlight the migration and/or immigration crises in an African region like southern Africa, which results in migrants existing in difficult conditions that are even comparable to that of migrants and refugees in other parts of conflict-ridden Africa such as the Horn of Africa or the Great Lakes region or those attempting to migrate out of Africa into Europe. The latter is adequately demonstrated by the ongoing migration crisis in the Mediterranean (see Nshimbi and Moyo, 2016). Although the former (southern African) region may not be in war, which implies the existence and enjoyment of peace, people involved in migration such as the Zimbabweans in question may not be enjoying peace. This is precisely because peace is not limited to the absence of war. In this regard, Galtung (1996 cited in Francis, 2011: 512), identifies two types of peace that are ‘“negative peace” – the absence of direct violence, war, fear and conflict at individual, national, regional and international levels – and “positive peace” [which is] the absence of unjust structures, unequal relationships and injustice, and inner peace at an individual level’.

When the undocumented Zimbabwean migrants are continuously placed on different temporary residence permits (called by different names, such as ‘dispensation’, ‘special’, and ‘exemption’ permits) for extended periods of time, it suggests that such Zimbabwean migrants are depoliticised and made invisible. The language around the launch of these permits is also telling. For example, at the expiry of the DZP, the announcement was that it will be replaced by the ZSP. Now that the ZSP has expired, it was announced by the Minister of Home Affairs that it would be closed and a new permit regime would kick in. Closure and replacement of permits implies many things, which may include that the affected migrants cannot refer to closed and replaced policies, if they ever attempt to claim permanent residence. This further suggests that such migrants exist in a tenuous immigration status and this is comparable to those migrants who are always on the run, fleeing conflict in Africa or attempting to migrate to Europe through the dangerous Mediterranean Sea waters. Therefore, in a region like southern Africa, with contiguous borders and centuries’ long history of migration, the issue of the regulation and/or management of migrants is crucial and needs highlighting. For this cause, it is advanced that the deployment of humanitarian logic in the management of migrants such as the undocumented Zimbabweans to and in South Africa actually depoliticises such migrants and thus places them in a place of liminality. This is an issue because it is an indictment of how African countries manage, fail, and/or are reluctant to manage migration.

Toward a context-specific migration regime?

By suggesting that the South African government should design a context-specific immigration policy, which is better than the ZSPs or ZEPs, or even relax the conditions of these permits, the question of whether South Africa has such a responsibility towards Zimbabwean migrants arises. I would argue that South Africa has a responsibility to manage its immigration policy and the security of the country just as it has a responsibility to contribute towards the free movement of people from SADC countries such as Zimbabwe. As a member of the SADC, South Africa is aware that the regional block aims to promote economic and social integration. SADC seeks, among other aims, ‘to strengthen and consolidate the long standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the people of the region’ (Southern African Development Community, 1992: 5). Pursuant to this, the Southern African Development Community, 1992, Article 5.2 (d) commits SADC countries to implementing ‘policies aimed at the progressive elimination of obstacles to the free movement of capital and labour, goods and services, and of the people of the region generally, among Member States’ (Southern African Development Community, 1992: 5). Nonetheless, there is no attempt to suggest that the SADC policies must take precedence over the South African immigration policies, but rather that the manner of managing migrants such as undocumented Zimbabweans could be improved. It is not enough to document migrants and then place conditions that depoliticise and make them invisible by constructing them as temporary sojourners who do not and should not belong, but who must go back to their country or apply for permits whose conditions they do not meet and have not always met. The argument is that South Africa could improve conditions on permits like ZEP, in the process of which the country could significantly contribute towards the realisation of the dream of free movement in the SADC. This does not mean that South Africa will be dictated to by SADC policies, but indeed that the country will be making strides in domesticating SADC policies in the sphere of human mobility, an example that can and needs to be followed by other SADC states. The blueprint for this already exists in the form of inter alia, the SADC Draft Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons in the SADC.

The overarching aim of this Protocol is to develop policies that will progressively eliminate obstacles to human mobility into and within SADC Members’ territories (Southern African Development Community, 2005: 3) and South Africa subscribes to this. This makes a good starting point for renegotiating the stringent and indeed exclusive conditions on permits like ZEP. This will make such permits a true gesture that consolidates regional integration, entrenching the Pan-African identity in pursuit of what the Minister of Home Affairs correctly noted in her press statement on launching ZEP as ‘the implementation of the African Union Agenda 2063 in relation to the facilitation of movement of persons on the continent for the promotion of trade, development, transfer of skills and social cohesion through cultural integration’ (Mkhize, 2017).

Conclusion

Zimbabweans continue to migrate to South Africa. What is important to highlight is that a huge proportion of Zimbabweans in South Africa may be undocumented. South Africa’s seemingly exclusionary immigration regime and especially the mobilisation of humanitarian logic that appear to have underpinned the implementation of the DZP, ZSP, and ZEP projects for Zimbabweans could increase the undocumented status of these migrants, when the latest exemption permit expires. A solution to this could entail relaxing the conditions of the current ZSPs and ZEPs, which could contribute towards the facilitation of human mobility in the SADC region and by extension regional integration. Further, moving the undocumented Zimbabwean migrants from one temporary permit to the other places them in a state of liminality, which is indeed comparable to those migrants fleeing war and are thus always on the move. This is even complicated by the fact that, when these Zimbabwean migrants fail to access mainstream immigration permits, they may have to illegally cross the Limpopo River, a dangerous move that involves evading crocodiles and scaling the border fence. Such an intra-Africa migration dynamic is worth highlighting, and this paper has attempted to illuminate the theoretical significance that it demonstrates, regarding the deployment of humanitarian logic that depoliticises and attempts to make such migrants invisible.

Further, the fact that SADC countries are still developing ad hoc policies like the DZP, ZSP, ZEP and more recently the Lesotho Special Permit (Department of Home Affairs, 2016) to deal with migration issues, is a serious indictment of the regional body’s commitment toward regional integration, especially on the matter of the free movement of people. The example of the DZP, ZSP, and ZEP is a clear indication of the lack of, and the reason why, a SADC regional migration framework could solve the issue of undocumented migration. There are progressive developments on the African continent that seem to provide a good example from which SADC could learn and adapt. For example, in the spirit of promoting free movement, the East African Community is in the process of launching a regional passport (the East African E-passport), and nation states in the East African Community will be given up to December 2018 to phase out national passports (Karuhanga, 2017). Another example is that of the Economic Community of West African States, which introduced a Travel Certificate for citizens of the regional block, so as to promote the free movement of people (Horace, 2006).

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

ORCID iD

Inocent Moyo

Author biography

Inocent Moyo is a Political Geographer. He teaches Human Geography courses at the University of Zululand, South Africa. His research interests include: political ecology, borders and mobilities, transnationalism, immigration policy, African politicaleconomy, regionalism and regional integration (with a particular focus on the SADC region), politcal economy of cross border informality and grassroots actorssocial networks, institutions and governance.

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