Materia seca de raíz

5.3.1 Post-independence movement of white Rhodesians 1980 - 1989

During the post-independence decade, 181 112 Rhodesian citizens, Rhodesian born and Rhodesian permanent residents immigrated to South Africa from

independent Zimbabwe, with the majority leaving shortly after independence (see Figure 5.2 for the breakdown by decade of immigration). Simon (1988) argues that white Rhodesians left the country in large numbers in 1980 and 1981, as they had believed that the more right-leaning Abel Muzorewa would win the 1980 Zimbabwean elections and the communist aligned Mugabe's margin of victory caught them by surprise. Mlambo (2010) argues that, in addition to those that left the country immediately after the 1980 elections, by 1987 more than half of Zimbabwe's white population had emigrated.

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Figure 5.2: Number of immigrants to South Africa from Zimbabwe 1980- 1989

Source: graph drawn using data from Peberdy (2009: 260-290)

While the numbers of white Zimbabweans that settled in South Africa before and after Zimbabwean independence are quite significant, they are not discernible in the South African population statistics as they largely assimilated into the South African white population and now largely identify themselves as South African. It is possible also that many of these white immigrants used South Africa as a transit point, and moved on to other countries, including the United Kingdom, USA, Australia and New Zealand, with their status captured as South African emigrants rather than Rhodesian emigrants. Overall, the white Rhodesian migrants are dealt with only marginally in the scholarly literature on Zimbabwean migration to South Africa. This may be because they are no longer a clearly discernible grouping, and within South Africa, they never experienced similar levels of exclusion and xenophobia experienced by black Zimbabweans.

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5.3.2 Gukurahundi and ethnic Ndebele migration: 1982 - 1987

Gukurahundi or the rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains was a Zimbabwean government programme of state sanctioned violence against the perceived enemies of the new government. The usage of the term gukurahundi is coterminous with the deployment of a special unit (the fifth brigade) of the Zimbabwean army answerable only to the Prime Minister into Matabeleland and Midlands areas in January 1983 (Alexander 1998; Catholic Commission for Justice & Peace in Zimbabwe and Legal Resources Foundation 1999; Eppel 2004). According to a 1999 Catholic Commission for Justice & Peace in

Zimbabwe (CCJPZ) and the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) report, the fifth brigade was formed through an agreement signed in October 1980 by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and the North Korean President, enlisting the services of North Korean instructors to train a special unit of the Zimbabwean army. Its mandate as enunciated by the Prime Minister Robert Mugabe was to "deal with dissidents and any other trouble in the country" (CCJPZ and LRF, 1999).

However, "within weeks of deployment, its soldiers had massacred thousands of civilians, and tortured thousands more" (Eppel 2004: 45). The details and

gruelling accounts of the fifth brigade are captured by the CCJPZ and LRF (1999) report and a few other texts, including Jocelyn Alexander's (1998) research on the perspectives of the dissidents and Shari Eppel's (2004) book chapter on the need for truth and reparation for the people affected by the gukurahundi violence. The fifth brigade left a trail of dispossession and trauma and an estimated 20 000 dead civilians in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands (Muzondidya and Ndlovu- Gatsheni 2007; Solidarity Peace Trust 2004). The gukurahundi violence precipitated the movement of mainly ethnic Ndebele and other minorities from Matabeleland and Midlands areas of Zimbabwe, with Sisulu, Moyo and Tshuma (2007) arguing that, this movement constituted a second wave of migration during the post-independence period. The movement consisted of both former Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) combatants and civilians who were targets of the government sponsored violence. Highlighting this movement, Jocelyn Alexander notes that,

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…the vast majority of former ZIPRAs did not react to 'the situation' by taking up arms again: a great many simply fled the country, along with many civilians, to Dukwe refugee camp in Botswana, or to South Africa, where they looked for work or stayed with relatives (Alexander 1998: 160).

In his study on Zimbabweans in the Johannesburg inner city, Makina (2010) found a sizeable population of Zimbabweans citing the gukurahundi violence as reasons for migration to South Africa. This movement arguably remains largely under reported in the literature though its components constitute an important dimension of the Zimbabwean presence in South Africa. According to Sisulu, Moyo and Tshuma (2007) this movement was largely clandestine and

undocumented, and as such is difficult to quantify as most of the refugees integrated into South African society due to the historical language and cultural affinities with isiZulu-speaking South Africans in particular.

5.3.3 The Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) Factor: years 1990-1999

ESAP in the Zimbabwean context refers to a programme of economic

restructuring, from a protectionist to a liberalised macro-economic environment introduced during the 1990-91 period at the instigation of the World Bank with support from the International Monetary Fund (Gibbon 1995; Riphenburg 1997; Sachikonye 1995). Trålim notes that:

Trade liberalisation, devaluation, reduction of the budget deficit and a general deregulation of established control mechanisms on prices, incomes, employment of labour, foreign exchange and investments were key components that were supposed to replace the regulated and protected economic regime in Zimbabwe (Trålim 1999: 77).

Academic writers agree that, in spite of the optimism that accompanied its inception, a combination of the 1992 drought and implementation problems resulted in ESAP not achieving the targeted economic growth and other positive results (see for example, Chattopadhyay 2000; Gibbon 1995; Potts and

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Mutambirwa 1998). Instead it set off a plethora of economic and social problems such as price increases for basic commodities, job losses, shrinking government revenues and increases in the cost of living for the general population

(Chattopadhyay 2000; Potts and Mutambirwa 1998). In real terms, life expectancy fell from 61 years in 1990 to 53 years in 1996 (Carmody 1998: 325) because of factors such as spiralling inflation, increasing unemployment, and deteriorating health and education. Tevera and Crush (2010) argue that, as the economic conditions continued to worsen in the early 1990s, professionals began to think that anywhere but home was better and started migrating to other countries. Gaidzanwa (1999) and Chikanda (2010) have focused on the movement of health professionals in the 1990s, arguing that the realities of ESAP provided the push factors for doctors and nurses to consider seeking employment in other countries. Describing the flight of medical professionals in the 1990s, Gaidzanwa (1999) figuratively states that professionals chose to "vote with their feet" as the realities of ESAP started to be felt more widely and the main destinations were South Africa for the doctors and Botswana for the nurses. In sum, those that migrated because of ESAP were mainly professionals in the health and education sectors. While the scale of this movement is hard to establish and the literature hardly quantifies it, it is important to note that it provided the precursor to the flood of Zimbabweans that followed. In other terms, it was the first significant movement driven by deteriorating economic conditions as the previous movements had largely been politically motivated, for example the movement of white Zimbabweans and Ndebele ethnic Zimbabweans after independence.

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