IS ZIMBABWE NOW A DE FACTO PROVINCE OF SOUTH AFRICA?

Today you can drive from Port Elizabeth, over Orange River, past Bloemfontein and arrive in Johannesburg without needing a passport. A lot of people don’t know that those were separate colonies (countries). If Smuts had not succeeded you would have crossed 3 borders and needed a passport. After successfully bringing the 4 colonies as one country, in 1922 Jan Smuts tried to bring in Rhodesia as the 5th province of South Africa and in a referendum a narrow majority of 2 785 white Rhodesians refused.

Years after Apartheid became official policy in South Africa, in Rhodesia the government of Ian Smith followed a similar policy to Apartheid when it came to segregation of Europeans, blacks, coloureds and Indians. South Africa was the main trading partner of Rhodesia and is still the main trading partner of Zimbabwe. In 1976 whilst Ian Smith’s government with the support of South Africa was fighting a bitter war against guerilla movements led separately by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. Prime Minister John Vorster decided to abandon Rhodesia, many white Rhodesians call it the great betrayal as they felt that it turned the tide against the racist government of Rhodesia in the war.

After independence in 1980, tens of thousands of white Rhodesians trekked to South Africa. Thousands of Ndebele men kept going to South Africa mainly to seek employment and to run away from the Gukurahundi Massacre of the 80s. After the chaotic land reform from 2000 and the accompanying economic decline in Zimbabwe, tens of thousands of skilled Zimbabweans started applying for work permits to relocate to South Africa.

When I went submit my work permit around June 2007 at the South African embassy in Harare, there were hundreds of people in the queue. I saw guys that I had worked with 10 years before when I was a teacher. Tens of thousands more came on travellers visas and started working mainly as waiters and farm workers as undocumented immigrants. I remember a lady I gave a lift in Gweru early 2007 who had quit her job as a bank teller at Stanbic Bank and was working as a waiter in Pretoria and was earning around R4 000.00. My salary then as a branch manager was equivalent of R1 000.00.

After the 2008 election, the violent election run off, the economic crisis in Zimbabwe hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans flocked to South Africa. I remember in 2008 driving from Beitbridge crowds walking along N1 between Musina and Louis Trichardt. During the Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, government of Thabo Mbeki stopped deporting Zimbabweans that time and they admitted sick Zimbabweans in hospitals in Musina in order to control the spread of Cholera. The Zimbabwe Special dispensation permit was unveiled by South Africa and over 200 000 were issued.

Now Zimbabwe depends almost entirely on South Africa, over a million Zimbabweans in South Africa send money and groceries to Zimbabwe for their families. Zimbabwe relies on electricity from Eskom to help plug the shortages. The Zimbabwean government is at the mercy of South African government and not the Chinese as some think.

Do you agree that Zimbabwe is now a de facto province of South Africa ?