April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Xekinima (CWI Greece) has supported and aided the campaign since it
started and has also been urging its expansion, against rising water and
electricity charges. Xekinima constantly emphasises the importance and
big potential of a mass non-payment movement that could lead the way to
bringing down the PASOK government, and refers to the example of the
Thatcher government’s defeat in the late 1990’s by the anti-poll tax
campaign in Britain.
Xekinima calls for the formation of non-payment committees everywhere
following democratic procedures; for the linking of the movement with
public transport workers and rank and file trade unionists, with the
understanding that workers in the public transport company have common
interests with the people who use the public transport (workers,
pensioners, students etc). We call for taking the non-payment movement
to the next level, fighting against all austerity measures taken by the
government for its ‘bail out’ by the EU and IMF; for the strengthening of
the resistance of the non-payment campaigns, with rolling 24-hour and 48hour
general strikes of the different sectors, culminating in repeated 3-day
general strikes.
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It's dangerous out there!
Struggles of Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa
Khadija Sharife 11 April
For Zimbabweans who cross into South Africa in search of work, robbery,
rape and extortion at the border is just the beginning of their problems.
Zimbabwean casual workers, excluded from applying for residency via the
official channels, are resorting to ‘purchasing’ South African identities
through ‘late registration’ birth certificates arranged through
intermediaries. With the moratorium on deportations now over, many
Zimbabweans now fear being sent back to the economic hardship they
fled. The desperation and dangers faced by these immigrants in their bid
to seek work in South Africa are rarely recorded.
According to one source, as the majority of Zimbabwean immigrants do not
hold official travel documents and cannot use asylum permits, money is
placed aside for informal purposes, in other words “bribing immigration
officials and police on the way”. The source claimed that bribery figures
escalate when bus drivers are also go-betweens in the market, charging a
fee. Interviewees claimed they traversed borders either through expensive
organised syndicates, or via illegal routes, where robbery and rape was
common.
“On many occasions, even before reaching the border, buses are stopped
by the police and everyone is asked to produce a passport. Those who do
not have would have to pay the requisite bribes,” claimed the source.
Of course, while the influx of Zimbabwean migrants hoping to find work as
manual labourers and domestic workers, has depreciated the cost of
labour in South Africa, many of these immigrants are socio-economic
refugees, anxious to source income for their family’s basic needs. As a
former school teacher stated, “By the time I left Zimbabwe, my monthly
salary could not buy two litres of cooking oil. I had to leave rather than
face the possibility of becoming destitute.”