Lucky Tshilimandila

Thank you @ClaysonMonyela for focusing on the root cause, and thank you too for opening this discussion. As a Zimbabwean who partly lives in South Africa legally, let me begin by saying that Zimbabweans are not coming to South Africa because they naturally hate Zimbabwe. They are coming because the economic conditions in Zimbabwe have become so horrific, so dehumanising and unbearable that Zimbabwean citizens are being forced to flee in search of survival and protection of their lives. I have repeatedly reported that more than 2,500 women die every year while giving birth in Zimbabwe because the healthcare delivery system has collapsed under the weight of corruption, looting and incompetence. That is the equivalent of 14 jumbo jets crashing every year and killing everyone on board. Hospitals have no medicines, no equipment and sometimes not even basic painkillers. This is not happening because Zimbabwe is poor. It is happening because public funds in Zimbabwe are being looted on an industrial scale. In any functioning democracy, citizens would remove such a corrupt and incompetent government through elections. But in Zimbabwe, every time people attempt to do that, regional political elites particularly in South Africa intervene to protect the ruling establishment. In 2008, even Robert Mugabe admitted publicly that he had lost the election, yet political support from South Africa helped keep the losing side in power. That is why South Africa cannot pretend to be shocked by illegal immigration from Zimbabwe while sections of its ruling political elite continue to legitimise disputed elections and openly embrace leaders accused of destroying Zimbabwe’s economy and institutions. When political leaders support regimes that rig elections, crush accountability and loot public resources, they also become the central chain of causation driving migration. Zimbabweans are not crossing into South Africa for pleasure. They are running away from economic collapse, a broken healthcare system, unemployment, corruption and hopelessness. They are looking for healthcare, jobs, dignity and survival. So when South Africans speak about illegal immigration, the conversation must go deeper than anger and slogans. We must ask the hard and intelligent questions as you have done. What is driving millions of people out of Zimbabwe into South Africa? Why are regional leaders particularly South Africa protecting the very political system producing this immigration crisis? Why do some political elites condemn immigration publicly while supporting the conditions that create it privately? What is the motive for that duplicitous behaviour? When ZANUPF and Robert Mugabe lost both the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008, the current Zimbabwean president and vice president led a murderous reign of terror in which between 400 and 600 Zimbabweans were murdered within just three months. Thousands more were tortured, displaced and forced to flee their homes as state sponsored violence swept across the country. At the height of that crisis, the then South African president Thabo Mbeki came to Zimbabwe and declared that there was “no crisis” in the country, despite overwhelming evidence of political violence and state repression. It was not accidental that xenophobic attacks against Zimbabweans intensified in that very year. As Zimbabweans were being murdered, tortured and displaced by the Zimbabwean government, with the tacit approval and political cover of the South African government and president at the time, many fled into South Africa in desperation. That sudden influx of desperate people, escaping political violence and economic collapse, created tension and flashpoints with poor South Africans already struggling with unemployment, housing shortages and collapsing public services in townships and areas such as Hillbrow. This issue is neither new nor imaginary. It is well known, well documented and rooted in political decisions made by regional elites who chose to protect power instead of protecting human lives and democratic principles. When the Zimbabwean election was blatantly rigged in full view of international cameras in 2023, the Secretary General of South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, Fikile Mbalula, went onto Twitter and declared, “Viva President Mnangagwa”, immediately after the disputed election. So South Africa’s ruling elites must not feign ignorance about what is happening in Zimbabwe or what drives illegal immigration into South Africa. They know exactly what is happening. They have seen the repression, the economic collapse, the corruption, the disputed elections and the destruction of institutions, yet sections of the political establishment continue to endorse and legitimise those responsible. Illegal immigration in South Africa stopped being merely a foreign policy issue years ago. I said this more than three years ago. It has now become a domestic policy issue because when millions of desperate foreign nationals enter South Africa, they need healthcare, housing, schools, jobs and other social services. Most arrive poor, traumatised and willing to do menial jobs just to survive. That pressure inevitably creates tension with poor South Africans who are themselves struggling with unemployment, poverty and failing public services. That is where the flashpoints emerge. That is where the clashes happen. So the critical question is this: why would South African political elites support and legitimise regimes in the region that are driving people out of their own countries through corruption, repression and failed governance, and then act shocked when the consequences spill into South Africa? You cannot help create the fire and then pretend to be surprised by the smoke. You cannot support or legitimise authoritarianism next door and then act surprised when the consequences cross the border. I was the first Zimbabwean journalist to break the 2008 post-election murders and violence story internationally through my camera lens, documenting the killings, torture camps and systematic violence unleashed against civilians. I later made an award winning documentary film titled A Violent Response, documenting this reign of terror that killed hundreds of Zimbabweans. I have attached the documentary below. For those who think Zimbabweans are leaving their country for fun, or that illegal immigration exists in a vacuum, this is part of the history and context that must never be erased or sanitised. I do sympathise with the poor, the uneducated and those who do not fully understand how state power is exercised or how statecraft works. But I have absolutely no sympathy for political elites such as the Secretary General of South Africa’s ruling party or the successive South African presidents who have continuously supported repression, corruption and disputed elections in Zimbabwe. That political protection is one of the main drivers of illegal immigration by undocumented Zimbabweans into South Africa. People do not flee functioning democracies with accountable governments. They flee collapsing states, repression, poverty and hopelessness. When regional political elites repeatedly shield corrupt and authoritarian governments from accountability, they become complicit in the humanitarian and migration crises that follow. You cannot help sustain repression in Zimbabwe and then pretend to be shocked when desperate Zimbabweans cross the border into South Africa seeking survival. Only two SADC presidents have resolutely stood up against the rigging of elections and the collapse of democratic norms in Zimbabwe, former and late Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa and former Botswana president Ian Khama. The rest largely chose silence, diplomacy without principle, or outright political solidarity with repression. So once again, my brother @claysonmonyela, thank you for taking us to where this discussion is supposed to be, looking at the root causes of illegal immigration in South Africa, the drivers of illegal immigration into South Africa, and how, hopefully, the political elites who in the past have made so many deliberate mistakes, for one reason or another, will self reflect and focus on dealing with the issue properly. Just today, I was reading that the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Félix Tshisekedi, wants to run for a third term. The DRC is part of Southern African Development Community. What serious leaders, especially in South Africa, should be doing is condemning this and making sure that it does not happen on their watch. Because if the DRC president violates the constitution, rigs a referendum, and secures a third term, there is going to be another huge influx of people into South Africa. South Africa does not only have a moral obligation to speak against these things and to use the SADC protocols, which it has failed to use from day one, it also has a direct national interest in these issues because each time there is chaos in the region, it is South Africa that carries the burden. But perhaps the leaders are not bothered because they do not personally carry that burden. It is carried by the state and by ordinary citizens. If political leaders had to carry this burden personally, if illegal immigrants slept outside their own homes, they would act decisively. So there is also an element of selfishness in how these issues have been handled. We should remember that people do not flee functioning democracies. They flee corruption, repression, rigged elections and hopelessness. Illegal immigration into South Africa did not begin at the border, it began with political failures protected by regional elites including South African leaders.