In recent years Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church has become home to destitute and desperate South Africans — and a sanctuary for refugees and asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
At 11pm on January 30 the South African Police Service (SAPS) raided the church apparently in search of guns, drugs and illegal immigrants. When the officers came up short on weapons and narcotics in the church — which shelters some of the city’s most vulnerable people — they arrested about 500 people. Among those arrested were hundreds of Zimbabwean asylum-seekers, the elderly, the infirm and a pregnant woman who was later denied treatment in police custody.
Police are accused of physically abusing the refugees and Bishop Paul Verryn, and of stealing their personal possessions. In their ostensible search for stolen goods, they allegedly broke down doors, stole the collection plate and cash off the bishop’s desk.
A South African national, who was caught up in the raid, said: “They beat people for no reason … some of us were beaten badly and just for asking questions … Some of us were lying face down. We went through a bad experience. All we wanted to know was, ‘Why all this?'”
It is precisely this question that all South Africans should be asking themselves and their leaders. Many of those arrested as “illegal foreigners” had, in fact, been trying to access documents for weeks or months at the country’s refugee reception offices. Unfortunately, the Johannesburg office has been closed for more than a year in defiance of a court order.
If the office was reopened or an additional centre near the Zimbabwean border was in working order, the number of “undocumented foreigners” in the country could be reduced dramatically. This would also free up the police to focus on crime prevention, perhaps using the time to raid the department of home affairs for its blatant and illegal disregard of the courts.
This might be expecting too much. Instead, let’s think about just what drove the police to violate the sanctuary of the church. State laws apply to all, yet this was a sacred space. “The police showed no respect for the dignity of this site. Instead they turned it into a disgrace,” said Verryn the day after the raid. “But I assure you that 90% of them will be in church on Sunday.”
Does this raid represent the persecution of a religious institution that does not respect South Africa’s immigration laws? Or is it an early sign of a new nationalist populism that disregards parishioners, foreigners and the laws designed to protect them?
In the past year, national leaders have softened their position on Zimbabweans — with President Thabo Mbeki and Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula urging South Africans to “live with” and “integrate” migrants. Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo also asked the city’s officials to create a “migrant-friendly city”. Even the SAPS got in on the act, providing clothing, food and toiletries to residents of the Central Methodist Church. So, what’s changed?
We would like to think that the ANC presidential elections were not a turning-point towards virulent, state-sponsored xenophobia. But what are we to think when the police disregard the law by telling people they don’t care if they have legal identity documents, or that their refugee documents are “Mbeki papers” that expired the day Jacob Zuma was elected president of the ANC? While the new ANC leadership has not formally endorsed the raid, it has yet to condemn it.
And what does this mean for the government’s anti-poverty agenda? Ever since former home affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi drew the link between migration and unemployment in South Africa, deportation has been hailed as a potential job-creator.
Yet last year South Africa deported a quarter of a million people — 50 000 more than the previous year. Apart from giving the Musina police station something to do, this expensive operation has created no new jobs.
Crackdowns of this sort show scant regard for the physical safety and dignity of people the police are meant to serve. The new leaders of the ANC make big claims about supporting trade union federation Cosatu, the workers of Zimbabwe and the universal struggle to promote the rights of workers and the disenfranchised. Yet, when poor South Africans and workers were beaten and abused on the Bishop’s doorstep, they say nothing.
As the new ANC leadership prepares for the 2009 elections, it is making promises that no government — however competent, committed or well-intentioned — can hope to satisfy. Will they take responsibility for these failures? Perhaps. But they are more likely to follow the tradition of leaders elsewhere in finding scapegoats.
Mbeki loyalists may be the first targets but, if we continue down this path, crime, joblessness and who knows, even the power cuts, will eventually fall squarely on the shoulders of the universal victim: refugees and undocumented migrants.
Illegal raids on churches and harassing the poor and deprived will not fix these problems, they will likely generate new ones.
Loren Landau is director of the Forced Migration Studies Programme at Wits University. Darshan Vigneswaran is co-director of the programme’s migrant and refugee rights monitoring project