Activist set to be deported

An activist with the Zimbabwe Vigil Coalition who is based in the United Kingdom is facing deportation.

The coalition fights for Zimbabweans to be granted the right to stay in the UK.

According to the coalition, Josephine Chari was detained by the UK Border Agency and told she had been booked on a Kenyan Airways flight to Nairobi.

She is one of the many Zimbabweans who failed to get asylum papers and has to return home.

Most people who are granted asylum status in the UK argue that they are running away from persecution in Zimbabwe.

"For our part, the Vigil believes that failed Zimbabwean asylum-seekers should not be removed until the situation in Zimbabwe is safe for opponents of (President Robert) Mugabe and when they can make a living. As it is, there are constant reports of violence and human rights abuses from Zimbabwe," said the coalition.

The Zimbabwe Vigil said in a letter addressed to the UK Home Office that it feared that Chari would be identified and victimised on her return home.

"In July 2010 an activist representing the Vigil and our partner organisation, Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe, returned home on a visit. He was identified as a Vigil supporter and arrested, beaten up and tortured. He would still be there if it hadn't been for our efforts to get him legal help and escape from Zimbabwe," reads the letter.

Chari is one of the few Zimbabweans in the diaspora whose cases receive prominence, while others are deported back home to face economic hardship.

Meanwhile, Passop, a South African refugee agency, recently wrote to the South Africa Home Affairs Department pleading for an extension for illegal emigrants who had failed to regularise their stay there.

Passop argues that since close to 100000 Zimbabweans who applied for legal status have not yet received their responses, the government should extend the deadline.

If an extension is granted, it would mean South Africa would have extended the deportation deadline for the third time.

Economic analysts say the extension of the deadline and granting of legal status to more Zimbabweans is for the benefit of Zimbabwe and the host countries as well.

"People in the diaspora are breadwinners. On average, each Zimbabwean family has someone in the diaspora who sends money for upkeep as well as building homes. Deporting them would mean some families would go without any income and more people would starve.

"Let's face it, for the past 10 or so years the diaspora - be it Botswana, South Africa or the UK - has kept Zimbabwe alive. When there were food shortages and other problems, relatives outside the country bailed us out," said Jethro Moyo, an economic analyst.

Christopher Mugada, another analyst, said deportations would not affect the white collar industry but would put a strain on the socioeconomic status of the country.

"Most of the people in the diaspora took up menial jobs and when they come back they won't affect the formal sector. Instead they will strain resources as they try to get into the mainstream life. They would not want to do the jobs they were doing abroad and there are no office jobs to take up," he said.

The Vigil said the decision to deport Zimbabweans from the UK and South Africa could be a planned agenda.

"People at the Vigil wondered whether this is part of a coordinated plan to swamp Zimbabwe with returnees. We say this because there are clear indications that the UK is preparing to send back failed Zimbabwean asylum-seekers. A number of our supporters say they have recently received letters from the Home Office refusing their asylum claims. One person was given a date by which she had to be out of the country.

"Could the aim be to boost the anti-Zanu-PF forces in the run up to the elections? What a difference a million angry Zimbabweans from South Africa and the UK would make," reads their press statement.

More than three million Zimbabweans are estimated to be in the diaspora.