Migrant workers in South Africa

Southern Africa has a long history of internal and cross-border labor migration. In South Africa in particular, a country where unemployment has hovered at 25 percent over the last two decades, migrants have been regarded as a threat to citizens’ jobs and are the targets of xenophobic threats and violence. Amid those xenophobic attacks against migrants in South Africa, anthropologist Zaheera Jinnah defends their presence, arguing that they contribute to the labor market with their mixed skills and informal employment.

In fact, the number and proportion of international migrant workers in South Africa is small, and internal migration is the more common form of mobility. A 2012 national labor force survey found that, of the 33 million people in the South African labor force, only 4 percent, or 1.2 million, were international migrants while 14 percent, or 4.7 million, were internal migrants.

More than a third of internal migrants in South Africa came from two major, poorer provinces: Limpopo (21 percent) and the Eastern Cape (17 percent) and moved toward the two provinces with the biggest economies in South Africa, Gauteng and the Western Cape. The latter have higher than national rates of in-migration of both domestic and international migrants.

International migrant workers do have better labor market outcomes than domestic migrants or locals – 77 percent participate in the labor force (compared to the national average of 55 percent) and 16 percent are unemployed (compared to the national average of 25 percent).

First, international migrants occupy a particularly precarious position in the labor market, characterized by insecurity and informality. International migrants are considerably less likely to be waged workers than domestic migrants or locals, and more likely to be own-account workers, unpaid family workers or self-employed. Further, 50 percent of international migrants were employed informally compared to a national average of 28 percent.

Second, gender matters. Men are more likely than women to move across an international border, but not within it. Men constitute 60 percent of the 1.2 million international migrants of working age in South Africa. However, the gender distribution is more even among domestic migrants, of which 52 percent are men. Women in South Africa, regardless of birthplace, tend to do poorly in the labor market in comparison to men. Women have a lower labor force participation rate at 49 percent, compared to 62 percent for men, and a higher unemployment rate at 28 percent, compared to 23 percent for men.

Third, migrants in South Africa are working in a mix of different types of occupations – 24 percent in managerial, professional or technical jobs, 28 percent in elementary and domestic work, and 21 percent in crafts, likely as self-employed artisans. And while the majority of migrants are from Southern Africa, there are also considerable numbers of workers from the rest of Africa, Europe, North America and Asia.

Finally, education matters in determining employment patterns. In general, the majority of South Africa’s workforce has a low educational status, with 45 percent of the working age population not completing secondary school, and only 10 percent of the population holding tertiary degrees. In contrast, 13 percent of international migrants have a post-school qualification.

It is incorrect to assume that migrants are taking locals’ jobs. Instead, the mix of different skill levels and high levels of informal and self-employment among migrants suggests that they are contributing in various ways to a labor market characterized by low levels of education and skills, and an economy with few formal sector jobs. What the data does strongly indicate is that low-skilled regional migrants, women in particular, face a precarious and vulnerable position in the labor market.

These are the real causes for concern in South Africa – the inability of rural areas, towns and cities to provide services and jobs for an increasing population, the lack of employment opportunities in a stagnant economy, the prevalence of informal work, and strong gendered differentials in accessing the labor market.

South Africa's Migrant Crisis

Fleeing war, drought and poverty , an increasing number of people from the Horn of Africa are heading south en route to South Africa. After arrival, many face xenophobia, arrest and deportation. Attempting to escape a dictatorial regime, many Ethiopians are fleeing the country in search of a better life. The country is suffering from severe drought and famine and has a border conflict with Eritrea. Eritreans are also seeking refuge away from a country that many experts rank as the least democratic in the world. Many head north toward Europe while others travel the southern route towards South Africa. Somalian refugees are also joining the trek south, fleeing atrocities and violence at the hands of al-Shabab militants in their country. Migration flows, which include refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons and economic migrants, put a strain on governments in the region as they struggle to cope with the large number of migrants crossing their borders and moving through their countries. Many live as illegal aliens.

For most, the goal is South Africa, the only country in the region where refugees and asylum seekers enjoy freedom of movement and the right to work rather than being confined to camps. But as the number of migrants from the Horn of Africa seeking asylum in South Africa reached unprecedented levels, authorities began debating a shift away from the 1951 Refugee Convention that defined the term "refugee," outlined the rights of the displaced and set the legal obligations of states to protect them. In South Africa, three percent of the population are migrants. Due to high unemployment rates and poor economic growth, South Africans are frustrated and anti-foreigner sentiments are expressed more often and, as in Europe, have become more mainstream.

"South Africa for many years has had a very progressive law regarding migrants, particularly among refugees, and the country was in fact the number one recipient for asylum seekers in the world," said Loren Landau, a senior researcher at the African Center for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. According to Landau, many refugees are not able to exercise their rights and increasingly the South African government has hinted that there is a need to control migration. "They are taking the cue from Australia, Europe and North America, saying that we can't have any more," he said, adding that while they are still formally committed to protecting refugees and migrants, in practice protections are being eroded.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, says South Africa has 120,000 recognized refugees and one million asylum seekers with pending cases. Tina Ghelli is the UNHCR's regional spokesperson for Southern Africa. "The biggest challenge in South Africa is the implementation of refugee's rights," she told DW. "Sometimes they face discrimination when they access social services and often become targets of xenophobia. Many of them make strong contributions to the community and economy - but that is not recognized."

There are currently amendments being discussed by the South African parliament to take away the rights to work for those people. Also the government is pushing neighboring countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania to keep the migrants so they do not travel further to South Africa. But also more and more people from Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Congo and Zimbabwe are fleeing their homes and arrive in South Africa, which many regard as an attractive economic giant.

The men, women and children making up these migrant flows towards southern Africa frequently resort to unsafe modes of transportation and smuggling networks. They expose themselves to injury, violence, detention, exploitation and abuse. Human trafficking has become a huge problem in the southern region. Desperate people are being trafficked from the Great Lakes region through many countries to South Africa. Recently, in Zambia police discovered a truck carrying more than 100 Ethiopians. 19 were dead. They were most likely victims of human trafficking.

Xenophobia in Zambia

Violence erupted earlier this month in slum areas of the capital after foreigners, especially Rwandans, were blamed for the recent murders of at least seven people, whose body parts such as ears, hearts and penises had been removed. Locals argued that these were ritual murders committed by foreigners to secure body parts used for good luck charms.

As a result, hundreds of Lusaka residents stoned houses and shops owned by foreign nationals, with hundreds of foreigners seeking refuge at police stations and churches as looters took food, drinks, refrigerators and other electrical appliances. Two people were burned to death in those anti-immigration riots in the country's capital, Lusaka. The two dead had been identified as Zambians who died "in the confusion" as riots tore through the shantytowns.  According to the police, more than 60 foreign-owned shops have been looted or destroyed in Lusaka in the past week and there were calls to "rid the country of all immigrants"

Zambia's government is trying to send hundreds of refugees back to camps. Refugees who built lives in residential neighbourhoods were not willing to return to camps even though they were facing imminent threats.

"People here say they don't want to return to refugee camps because there is no way to make a living and conditions are poor," Al Jazeera's reporter, Fahmida Miller, said

Fleeing Eritrea

Of those migrants who crossed the Mediterranean this year, Eritreans formed the third-largest national group, behind Syrians and Afghanis. The UNHCR says 5,000 leave every month. As many as 3% of the 6 million-strong population have migrated.

Eritrea is not at war, but its first and only president, Isaias Afwerki, plays up the possibility of a return to conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia. This threat is used to justify the absence of a constitution, the destruction of the judicial system. Until the early 2000s, Eritrea had the semblance of a judicial system but for the past decade, multiple reports suggest police are simply locking people up without trial. And there is the implementation of indefinite national service that allows the government to treat each civilian as a modern-day serf for their whole life. It is a totalitarian state where most citizens fear arrest at any moment and dare not speak to their neighbours, gather in groups or linger long outside their homes. Gathering in groups of more than two is effectively banned: an invitation for the police to stop and hassle you. Citizens cannot travel freely without written permission. The government has a wide web of informants, a network so extensive that some Eritreans claim they are wary even of speaking to their friends and family about politics. “The distrust between people is very high,” one told the UN’s Eritrea commission. “You do not even trust your own brother; he could be even part of the national security.” Phones are tapped, but most people aren’t allowed them anyway. Interviewees claimed people on active military service are barred from owning a mobile. Anyone else who wants one has to apply at a government office in the capital of their province. There is no private media. The only public meetings allowed are those of Afwerki’s political party.

There exists an indefinite national service and through this system, the government controls almost every aspect of a civilian’s life – male or female – from the age of 16 or 17. Where you live, your daily routine, and how often you see your family – all this is decided by the government, thanks to the national service system. The government takes away almost all prospect of personal choice. Conscripts are posted where the government orders them, and remain there for months and often years without being allowed home.

“We are just like slaves for them,” said Kibrom, 24, who spent the entirety of his adult life as a conscript until his escape a few months ago. “That’s why we’re leaving. It’s become one big prison for us.” Conscripts are technically paid. Different exiles report different monthly wages, but each fell between 500 and 750 nakfas (the local currency) – a negligible pay that equates to between £20 and £30. The amount is so low that it is virtually meaningless, former conscripts say. “It is only enough for three days – so for the other 27 days I would go hungry,” said Kibrom. “To buy a chicken, it’s 600 nakfa. And that tells you everything. If I want to have a family, to marry, to have children – that 600 isn’t going to be enough.”

To help people access food, the government gives out coupons, but even then this is essentially a system of control. If you’re not in good grace with the regime, you don’t get any coupons and if you don’t get any coupons, you don’t get anything to eat.

According to Andebrhan Welde Giorgis, the former head of the Eritrean central bank, ex-ambassador to the EU, and one-time president of Eritrea’s only university, when Eritrea won its freedom from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, after a decades-long liberation struggle led by, among others, President Afwerki, the period of service was meant to last for just 18 months. The aim was both to safeguard the fragile new nation’s security, and provide a temporary workforce to rebuild its war-shattered infrastructure and economy.

“It had a military aspect, a social aspect, an economic aspect, and also a cultural aspect,” said Welde Giorgis, a one-time ally of Afwerki who became an exile in 2006, and later wrote a history of his country. “But all of that was abused when it became indefinite. When it was proclaimed in 1994, people were in their late teens – and now they’re in their early 40s. How can they sustain families? The objective consequence is the destruction of the nuclear family. If you don’t have a nuclear family, you don’t have a community, and you don’t have a society. It’s modern-day servitude.” Welde Giorgis explained: “You’re not brought before a court of law. You’re not allowed to defend yourself. Your family has no rights of visitation, they don’t know where you are, they don’t know about the physical and mental condition you are in. Once you have disappeared you have one man acting as the accuser, the jailer, the judge and the executioner.”

Conscripts describe military service as a mixture of humiliation and tedium. “It’s not just about serving, it’s about being tortured,” said Sofia, who spent four years as a conscript before fleeing to Egypt. xiles often describe a torture position known as “the eight”, whereby a conscript lies on their front, has their hands and ankles tied together behind them, and is then hoisted into the air. One victim recalled hanging like this for days on end, as punishment for scuffling with a fellow conscript. When he was finally freed, it took weeks for him to regain control of his legs.

“Another [torture method] is when they spread tea powder mixed with sugar and some water – and then spread it on you, so that it attracts flies,” Sofia recalled.

The serving part of military service often involves providing cheap labour for the government. “Sometimes they say: ‘Go to the mountains to quarry the stone,’ sometimes they say ‘Go to the forest to cut wood,’ and sometimes: ‘Go and clean the streets,’” said Omar, 27. “Everything that the government might need doing, they use the conscripts as slaves.”

Unless they escape Eritrea, the unlucky majority of conscripts will stay in this limbo for their entire life. But a minority will play out their national service in a partly civilian context. After their first year, which is spent in a mixture of army training and classroom education, Eritreans take an exam. Those who do well are trained to fill a range of roles within the civil service – as teachers, nurses, or even newscasters within Eritrea’s amateurish state television network, Eri-TV. The pay is as low as it is in the army. Some conscripts within the civil workforce say they also had to fulfil military duties by night. Mehari, 22, who arrived in Italy this summer, was assigned to be a primary school teacher. “But when I say teacher, I mean that in the day I’d work as a teacher, but at night I would wait for orders from the army.” Most of the experienced teachers had already fled the country, so the staff were largely young conscripts, whom the students had little respect for. “They know that at the end of the day they will have to go to military service. So no one wants to learn. And the teachers know that. So the teachers don’t want to teach.”

Welde Giorgis left Eritrea in 2006 because he no longer believed internal reform was possible. The average Eritrean is now “a helpless victim”, he says. “And that’s why you see these large numbers of Eritreans leaving the country at great risk to their lives. Many die from dehydration in the Sahara. Many have drowned in the Mediterranean. Many have become victim to organ harvesters in the Sinai. But nobody cares. Eritrea has become an earthly hell, an earthly inferno for its people – and that’s why they are taking such huge risks to their personal lives to escape the situation. It’s become unliveable.”

 From here 

The Misery of Migrants in Malawi

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Maula prison, in the Malawi capital of Lilongwe was built to accommodate 800 prisoners, but now is bursting at the seams with 2,650 inmates. Amongst this desperate population, the most vulnerable are the nearly 300 undocumented migrants who were arrested as they travelled towards South Africa. These men represent the reality of our mobile world, where people are on the move, seeking refuge from violence and inequality or escape from chronic poverty. Lacking any kind of resources, they left their countries of origin in the hope of building a decent life in South Africa. A dream denied at home, that dramatically ended up in Malawi’s prisons.

Abeba, a man in his thirties from Durame, Ethiopia says “We are not criminals! But now, in prison, we are not human anymore.”

The number of foreign citizens, mostly Ethiopians, detained in Malawi for illegal entry has increased in the past few years, becoming a phenomenon of humanitarian concern. Most of them have been charged for three months, but the reality is that they have been locked away for more. The law requires they return to their homelands after their periods of detention, but bureaucratic delays impede any way forward. Moreover, they are supposed to cover their expenses for repatriation, a contradiction to their weak economic status.

A young boy explains “My dream is to reach South Africa; this is what I have worked towards for years. I knew it would be difficult, but I never thought I’d end up here. I thought Africans were all brothers. But here… here it seems different.”

Ethiopians follow a long-standing pattern of migration towards South Africa, their beacon of light. “Where we live, there is not enough land for everyone, we are too many in my family,” says Abeba, counting with the fingers on both hands the number of brothers in his family. “If I go to South Africa, after two or three years I can afford to buy a house. If you work for twenty years in Ethiopia you can’t buy anything,” he says. Another young Ethiopian adds, “If you need a job there, you have to belong to a certain family that has land. My family doesn’t have any.” For many, leaving the country wasn’t a choice. It was their last hope for survival.

Prisoners in Maula get food only once a day. They usually eat a plate of nsima - ground maize that fills the stomach but doesn’t give many nutrients. Beans are an occasional treat. Nutrition is so poor that last month Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had to treat 18 inmates for moderate-to-severe malnutrition

Globalisation: Free Flow Versus Restriction

Despite the rhetoric about globalisation’s free flow of ideas, capital and technology, the world remains obsessed with restricting the movement of people who don’t fit into neat boxes of what is tolerable or even desirable.

Late last week, I was informed that I would not be able to travel to Dubai for an important meeting scheduled months ago. Like other countries across the globe, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) halted travel for those with Guinean, Liberian and Sierra Leonean passports during the height of the Ebola outbreak. It has not lifted these restrictions.
 
The miniature red suitcase I had packed lay abandoned on my wooden floor. I caressed my dark green Liberian passport as if to reassure this inanimate marker of identity that my citizenship was not on trial here. The spectre of Ebola had simply triumphed over reason. Yet, the irony of this episode hasn’t escaped me. Dubai is a hub for cross-continental travel. In 2013 alone, the UAE boasted the fifth largest international migrant pool in the world—hosting 7.8 million foreign residents out of a total population of 9.2 million. Furthermore, foreign labour migrants account for 90 percent of the country’s private workforce, mostly from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.
 
Unlike the US and UK, where anti-immigrant sentiments have reached fever pitch, the UAE seems more pliant to international travellers. So, naturally, I thought it was odd when I attempted to complete the online visa form and Liberia was not listed as an option for ‘present nationality’. Nor were Guinea and Sierra Leone. This was punishment for simply being born in Africa with a particular African passport. Even the organisers of the meeting were shocked, disbelief sprinkled in their conciliatory e-mails and phone calls. All diplomatic channels had proved futile. The verdict was irreversible. I would not be getting on that plush Emirates flight. Never mind that Liberia was declared Ebola-free on May 9, exactly one month ago. Never mind that I have not been to my homeland in over 10 months. Nor was I asked about recent travel there. Never mind that my country and its people are slowly trying to recover from an invisible foe that killed nearly 5,000 and infected about 11,000.
 
In the past year, I’ve seen my passport scrutinised more intently than ever before, but the UAE blanket bias felt like adding salt to a fresh wound. At first, I experienced blinding rage with a touch of indignation. The kind that gurgles in the pit of your gut, and then explodes. Then I was amused by the absurdity of it all. If I were travelling directly from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone and had a passport from a country on UAE’s list of exemptions, I would have gotten a visa on arrival with ease. No questions asked. Mild acceptance slowly seeped in, reminding me that we maintain immigration hierarchies as a form of erasure and silencing. In our obsession with citizenship tiers, west is best. North trumps South. And white is inevitably right. Never mind black/brown solidarity. Or does that even exist?
 
I have shied away from returning home fearing the kind of immobility that sees people not as complex beings but as nameless, faceless ‘threats’ to national security. A sedentarist kind of metaphysic that keeps certain people in their place. People like me. Truth be told, the natural human compulsion for mobility is currently under threat because of irrational immigration bans such as the UAE’s.
 
For all the rhetoric about globalisation’s free flow of ideas, capital and technology, the world remains obsessed with restricting the movement of people who don’t fit into our neat boxes of what is tolerable or even desirable. The UAE saga is a microcosm of a larger debate about the need for immigration reforms worldwide. The scapegoating of migrants across the globe deflects attention from the fact that most countries have failed to improve the quality of life of their domestic citizens. Afro-fobic attacks in South Africa, Australia’s Pacific Solution, and the plight of Rohingya Muslims off the coast of Indonesia are extreme examples. Immigration is framed as a zero sum game, with finite rights and resources available to a select few.
 
I watch migrants who look like me risk their lives on sardine-packed, rickety boats to cross the Mediterranean, and know intuitively that they wouldn’t flee if they had a choice. With each desperate attempt to cross over, what they are effectively saying is that Europe must make amends for waging unjustifiable wars and supporting authoritarian regimes in some of their countries of origin. Centuries ago, Africans were so eager to escape lives of bondage, some dove to sudden death in the Atlantic. They were the first forced migrants I can recall. Now, many of us travel across these same waters for short-, medium- and long-term trips. Not because of some deep, abiding love for life abroad, but because it gives us a measure of flexibility. It keeps us physically connected to the rest of the world. And for someone like me with chronic wanderlust, the ability to travel unencumbered is almost as necessary as oxygen itself.
 
Although a self-professed transnational, I used to be suspicious of Liberians who changed their nationality out of convenience. But after interviewing more than 200 of us across five urban centres in West Africa, North America and Europe for my doctoral thesis on citizenship construction and practice, I have become more empathetic. Many of us make the switch because of the access so easily denied me by the UAE. But we shouldn’t have to.
 
I can’t say I would ever consider exchanging my passport for another, especially since Liberia prohibits dual citizenship. Yet, the UAE debacle has shaken me to the core. It’s made me acutely aware that citizenship is both personal and political.
 
from here by Robtel Neajai Pailey, Liberian academic, activist and author based at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The Bounty of the African Diaspora

The 30 million strong African diaspora fuels the continents’ budget to the tune of 5% of its total GDP. The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) estimates the African remittance flows to and within the continent reach $40 billion per year. Because about 75% of all transfers are informal and, therefore, impossible to track, diaspora remittances would be up four times bigger bringing the actual figure anywhere between $120 billion and $160 billion.

Breaking down the official numbers indicates that the remittances received on per capita basis equal about $40. Since not every person is lucky enough to have a diaspora friend or relative, the actual average estimated remittance value sent by a migrant equals $1,177 yearly. This is most often shared by a number of relatives.

Morocco tops the chart at over $6 billion. In second place is Algeria with $5.4 billion then Nigeria with $5.39 billion and Egypt with $3.6 billion. However, if one looks at the percentage of a country’s GDP that is supplied through remittance, it is the poorest and relatively smaller countries that show the highest dependence on foreign transfers: Eritrea (38%), Cape Verde (34%), Liberia (26%) and Burundi (23%).

Somalia, which receives approximately $1 billion worth of diaspora transfers every year, is not listed on percentage terms because its GDP is unclear. Using the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) economic estimates, however, shows that the country’s remittance could be approximately 40% of its total domestic product. Placing Somalia at the top of relative remittance value. In Somalia, a country with diaspora spanning all continents, money is spent less eagerly on health and education simply because these facilities aren’t commonly available and, if they are, reflect poor quality.

In Eritrea, where ¼ of population lives abroad, about one in three households depends on remittance income, while 75% of all survey respondents receive at least one form of remittance. A study by Temesgen Kifle from the University of Queensland noted, “it is evident that remittances receiving households in Eritrea spend part of the remittances on child education …’. Kifle’s regression analysis shows that a 1% increase in household income (including both formal earning and remittance) increases the education ratio by around 0.04 percentage points.

A World Bank paper titled: “Remittances, Consumption and Investment in Ghana” concludes that remittances do affect marginal spending behaviour of households. Most significant findings show that households receiving remittance spend less at the margin on food by as much as 14%, and more at the margin on education by as much as 33%.

Another study focusing on Nigeria and Kenya published by the World Bank in 2011, revealed that more than half of total remittance spending is invested in home-building, land purchases and farm improvements.

Donna Clifton, in an article in the Population Reference Bureau, concludes that countries’ economic growth can be directly affected by remittance levels through consumption and investment patterns. Clifton points to an important fact related to migration: As the overwhelming majority of workers living abroad are male, a significantly higher number of female-headed households emerge in the country of origin. In Ghana, for example, 52% of households with migrant workers were female headed, compared with only 25% for households with no migrant workers. It has been empirically proven, many times over, that female-headed households have a considerably higher inclination to invest in health care and education – the core sectors of human capital – as well as having a higher propensity to saving.

http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-05-29-remittance-in-africa-where-does-it-go

Ethiopia: Economic Growth and Political Repression

With national “elections” close - periods historically marked by boycotts, corruption and vote-rigging, violence and repression – Ethiopia merits attention. It’s a country characterized by widespread torture, oppression and crackdowns on perceived dissidents.

Nestled in the turbulent Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent modern nation-state and second most populous. Discourse on Ethiopia has traditionally revolved around poverty, conflict, disease and famine. Yet in recent years it has experienced considerable economic growth, making it amongst “Africa’s top performing economies,” and the country has also made significant progress on several of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Furthermore, regional political maneuvers and ambitions have seen Ethiopia touted as “Africa’s Next Hegemon.” Although these developments are widely heralded within the new Ethiopian narrative, other critical issues have often been overlooked.
 
For example, while Ethiopia’s economic “miracle” has been much celebrated, it remains the second poorest country in the world according to the United Nations Development Programme. The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s Multidimensional Poverty Index indicates that the country continues to rank extremely low upon various socio-economic, governance and development indicators. It still receives significant amounts of military, economic, and food aid, is plagued by considerable regional and ethnolinguistic-based inequalities (many arising through government cronyism), and it is also burdened by significantly high levels of unemployment (partly fueling mass migration).
 
Problematically, Ethiopia’s state-led development strategy is riddled with pervasive, systematic human rights abuses. Since the beginning of work on Ethiopia’s Gibe III Dam project in 2006, international human rights groups have repeatedly accused the regime in Addis Ababa of forcibly driving indigenous minority ethnic groups out of the Lower Omo Valley and endangering the indigenous Turkana community. Survival International, a UK-based rights group, has warned that the “Kwegu people of southwest Ethiopia are facing a food crisis, severe hunger, and the loss of their water and fish supplies due to the destruction of surrounding forests and the drying up of the river on which their livelihoods depend.”
 
The brutality characterizing the Gibe III Dam project is mirrored by the violence and repression accompanying Ethiopia’s “villagization” program, a vital component of the state’s agricultural development strategy. Dating back to the days of the murderous Dergue regime, and condemned by a spate of international rights groups, villagization entails the forcible relocation of indigenous communities from locations reserved for large foreign-owned plantations. Reports by rights groups list a plethora of human rights violations including beatings, killings, rapes, imprisonment, intimidation and political coercion by the government and authorities. The program has also led to greater food insecurity, a destruction of livelihoods, and the loss of cultural heritage of ethnic groups. The deleterious effects of villagization are displayed in a report (based on first-person testimony) recently released by the Oakland Institute (OI), an international rights, advocacy, and environmental group. OI’s report vividly describes how, via “strongarm tactics reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, the Ethiopian regime has moved tens of thousands of people against their will to purpose-built communes that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities to make way for large, foreign-owned commercial agriculture projects.”
 
In essence, Ethiopia’s socio-political climate is characterized by torture, oppression, and crackdowns on any perceived signs of dissent. Reports “detailing the arbitrary detention, beatings, and torture of journalists, bloggers, youth, and governmental opponents are widespread, including Ethiopia’s use of surveillance equipment to monitor the speech and interactions of the Ethiopian diaspora.” Last year, documents released by renowned international journalist Glenn Greenwald also revealed that Ethiopia's state surveillance activities were partly underwritten by the NSA.
 
However, there are signs that long-simmering grievances and tensions may boil over. Disenchantment and disillusionment, marked by claims of “repression, inequality and unemployment” have inspired large, frequent protests against the regime over the last few years. Last year, mass protests by Oromo civilians, especially students, were brutally crushed by Ethiopian authorities, while last week, a government organized rally, arranged in the aftermath of ISIS’ brutal murder of Ethiopian migrants in Libya, witnessed numerous arrests, injuries, and widespread clashes between security forces and protesters. During the rally, the government trumpeted political slogans, with an eye on upcoming elections, while government spokespersons urged potential migrants not to risk their lives by using dangerous exit routes. Demonstrators erupted in anger, denouncing the government as “thieves” and condemning the fact that Ethiopian migrants were only in Libya due to the deplorable conditions in Ethiopia.
 
With national “elections” on the near horizon, periods historically marked by boycotts, corruption and vote-rigging, violence, and repression, Ethiopia’s internal socio-political dynamics merit attention and should not be overlooked, particularly due to potential domestic and regional humanitarian and security implications. The migrant tragedy in Libya and the regime’s ongoing crackdowns display clearly that the “African Lion” is unwell. Moreover, they could augur that additional instability, upheaval, uprisings, and even a long-sought socio-political change are to come.
 
by Fikrejesus Amahazion from here

The War Against Migrants

It is easy to be cynical about the outpouring of grief from the European Union’s leaders on behalf of the roughly 800 migrants who drowned when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean last week. Those leaders pledged “determined action … to prevent the loss of lives at sea and to avoid that such human tragedies happen again”—but that pledge was first made in October 2013, the last time Europe saw a crisis of this kind. EU leaders hold meetings and give grand statements to the cameras, because these are easy ways to show they care. But in the more than 18 months since the last mass drowning hit the headlines, the Lampedusa disaster, little action has been taken.

“We have become accomplices to one of the biggest crimes to take place in European postwar history,”  Germany’s Spiegel magazine said.

Yet Europe will not open its doors to tens of thousands of immigrants, making any debate over the morality of such a policy irrelevant. Just about all of Europe’s major leaders know that in the coming months  this crisis will have blown over and been forgotten. Opening the doors to impoverished people will only cost them votes. So all the humanitarian talk signifies nothing but meaningless cant.

However, amid those hypocritical platitudes the EU is heading towards increasing its military presence in the Mediterranean that will gradually draw it deeper into Africa. Europe refuses to make it easier for Africans to migrate to Europe legally, so it will to prevent these deaths by stopping the boats. EU leaders are thinking—military involvement in Africa, not loosening immigration restrictions—is the way to solve this problem. EU leaders promise a mission “to identify, capture, and destroy” the ships used to ferry the immigrants over, “before they are used by traffickers.” Several EU members have pledged to contribute militarily. Britain will send its Navy’s flagship HMS Bulwark. Germany has promised 11 ships. This military mission requires either an invitation from Libya (which lacks a functioning government) or authorsation under a United Nations mandate. The  EU leaders has also promised to “increase support to Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Mali and Niger among others, to monitor and control the land borders and routes.” These are small steps, but they will surely be followed by bigger ones and what is described as “mission creep”. The presence of EU forces will most definitely attract the increased attention of the militant Islamists of ISIS, who are already active in the region

The main announcements since last week’s sinking all revolve around securing Europe. There is now a real possibility of European military strikes in Libyan waters, and even on Libyan territory. Europe’s surveillance operation is not aimed at rescuing immigrants. It operates only within 30 miles from the European coast—it is aimed at protecting Europe. That action would not be easy. Earlier military missions in Africa have shown that Europe struggles to put together the logistic capacity for larger Africa missions—for example, in the past it has had to rely on the United States for transportation and refuelling.

Northern Africa may well turn into a battleground with enormous implications.

Europe's Xenophobia

While world attention is focused upon the xenophobic riots against foreigners in South Africa that many claim was instigated by politicians such as the Zulu king, the United Nations draws attention to the shameful complicity of governments in the deaths of many hundreds of migrants and refugees in Europe. 

Anti-immigrant rhetoric from politicians across Europe, including Britain, is blocking attempts to introduce large search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean that would save large numbers of migrant lives, Laurens Jolles, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Italy, has warned. Jolles said political expediency was preventing measures being taken to reduce migrant deaths. “In many countries in Europe at the moment, the [political] dialogue and the rhetoric is quite extreme and very irresponsible,” he said. Jolles said: “Because of elections and because of the economic crisis, it becomes difficult for those parties who traditionally would not follow on those same lines to counter the rhetoric with the strength that they should.

 “It’s a fear of foreigners, which is a logical fear, a natural fear, but it is being exploited for populist or political reasons, especially in election periods.” He continued, “The level of this dialogue compared to 20 years ago is just incredible. It wouldn’t have been possible in the past, the racist rhetoric, the rhetoric of intolerance. In the 60s, 70s and the 80s, we would never have accepted this,” said Jolles.

The UK Foreign Office says it will not support future search-and-rescue operations because they encourage migration. “The fact that the UK has made it clear that it does not wish to participate in contributing measures to a rescue operation, or putting in place a rescue operation in the Mediterranean, is very concerning,” said Jolles. 

In December, the UNHCR appealed to the EU to provide 130,000 resettlement places for Syrians displaced by the civil war. Germany has pledged to take 30,000 and Sweden 2,700. The remaining 26 EU states are taking 5,438 between them, with Britain taking just 143.

 “The UK should be participating and contributing in a European context to solidarity measures and trying to fulfil its part making it easier to deal with these [migration] flows,” said Jolles. “If one really wants to tackle the problem and ensure that there are less deaths, then the thing to do is to look at providing legal avenues to come to Europe. There is an obligation, both moral and legal, to try and do something. People will die.”

The UNHCR is concerned that rather than helping to create a safe passage for migrants, the European commission is more concerned with trying to stop people entering. “What we are hearing is that there is more dialogue on how to prevent people coming to Europe and how to stop them than how to manage the flows and what to do when these persons come into Europe,” said Jolles.

In order to ward off unrest various tactics are employed by governments. One of them is creating divisions among the suffering masses by, for instance, blaming foreigners and whipping up nationalistic feelings. This diverts attention from misrule and mismanagement. Secondly, and in response to the official lies, the masses who are hungry, sick and illiterate are taken in by the government's ploy. Now, since a hungry man is an angry man and since anger is emotional and overpowers reason, the least provocation can result in violence-often misdirected. Such violence can be vented against fellow citizens usually manifested in riots and civil wars. The violence is also invariably be turned loose on the "aliens". This is the real cause of xenophobia-the rich pitting the poor against the poor. In fact wealthy "foreigners" are rarely affected.

The real solution will be to eliminate the present situation of a minority owning the means of production and distribution of wealth whilst the majority owning nothing, have to work for the few. In other words money, buying and selling, commodities and the like must be done away with. Humanity must commonly own the means of production and must have free and equal access to the produce. Under such circumstances there will be no want and consequently no war and hatred. But this type of system can only be possible when people make efforts to understand it. When they understand and want it, they can organise to usher it in.

South Africa and the EU are not very much different in essence when their ruling class seek to divide and rule, even if both vehemently deny that charge. The facts and evidence says otherwise. 

Burundians Flee, Fearing Pre-Election Violence

Thousands of Burundians have fled their country, fearing it might descend into violence ahead of a presidential election scheduled for June.

“Burundi is sitting on a time-bomb and it’s sad that the outside world does not care,” Justin Rwasa, one of around 4,000 Burundians to have sought refuge in neighbouring Rwanda, told IRIN.

Burundi is wracked with uncertainty over whether President Pierre Nkurunziza will run for a third term, a move many say would violate the constitution as well as the terms of the peace accord that ended a brutal civil war which cost some 300,000 lives.

Nkurunziza met Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on Monday and detailed the measures taken to ensure the pre-electoral period in Burundi would remain peaceful. Officials said they also discussed ways of returning the refugees to Burundi so that they could take part in the elections.

Refugees who spoke to IRIN in Rwanda’s eastern Bugesera district, where most of them are being housed in two transit centres, said they fled because they were afraid of the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of Burundi’s ruling party.

Youth members are frequently accused of harassing, abducting and even killing opposition figures and supporters. Last weekend, Nkurunziza’s government denied reports that arms had been distributed to the Imbonerakure.

Burundian officials have visited refugees in Rwanda in a bid to persuade them it is safe to return home, but to no avail.

Internal Affairs Minister Edouard Nduwimana has tried to reassure the refugees, saying there is “no merit” to claims that the Imbonerakure have carried out extrajudicial killings.

He said Burundi’s government did not accommodate “mobs” and that whoever was harassing civilians was doing it individually with no army or police “blessing.”

But the refugees told IRIN there was no way they were going back now.

“Some of our relatives have disappeared, but the government has continued to deny this,” said Rwasa, 34.

Beata Mukamusoni alleged that hitlists had been drawn up and houses marked to identify those being targeted.

Mukamusoni, who hid close to the border for a week before slipping across into Rwanda, said some of her relatives had made a show of being Nkurunziza supporters so as to be safe “in case violence erupts.”

“We can’t go back now. Maybe after the elections,” Stan Rutskikiri, another refugee, told IRIN.

Human rights activists in Burundi have long reported that the Imbonerakure have more power and influence than the legitimate authorities in some rural areas.

Yvette Ndikuman, 25, said that in her village, in Kirundo province, policemen are afraid of reprimanding Imbonerakure members “since they are supported from above.” “We are not politicians. We dig [our fields] so that we feed our families,” she told IRIN.

Some refugees claimed they were being targeted because they were from the minority Tutsi community. One told IRIN the Imbonerakure are threatening them, saying: “You (Tutsis) survived in the past but you will see this time round.”

Burundi’s civil war was fought along ethnic lines, and the essence of the 2000 peace and reconciliation accord was to ensure, through a quota system, a balance of power between the long dominant Tutsi and the Hutu majority, which makes up 85 percent of the population.

Recent years have delivered significant reconciliation and Burundi’s political fault lines are less defined in Hutu-Tutsi terms than they used to be, with the fulcrum of tension being whether Nkurunziza should be allowed to run again.

The president does have his supporters: around 20,000 of them took to the streets of the capital on Saturday to sing his praises and urge him to run again.

But tensions have already created major splits within the ruling party, with 140 senior members signing a petition demanding the president not run. Thirty have since been expelled from the party, while the country’s intelligence chief, Godefroid Niyombare, was sacked after advising Nkurunziza against seeking a third term.

Five opposition parties have called on all those opposed to Nkurunziza running to take part in a peaceful demonstration in the capital on Wednesday.

from here

The Scramble Out of Africa

Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean, a tragedy of untold proportions. The question is: why do they take the risk? The influx of desperate human beings cannot be stopped. They put their lives at risk because they live in dire conditions and there is no other way for them but to try under all circumstances to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. Many motivating factors are involved rampant poverty, desertification caused by climate change, rive political corruption, disease and hunger and now the new phenomenon of so-called Muslim jihadist activity.  A recent resurgence of conflict in the Central African Republic, Mali, northern Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan has continued to displace millions, pushing ever more young men north towards Europe. The Libyan coasts are wide open. Beatings and rape by Libyan smugglers holding migrants as virtual prisoners in buildings and walled courtyards while they wait for the next boat. The inhumane human traffickers are rubbing their hands in glee at the expectation of more ill-gotten gains, not lacking custom, so long as men with a mission do their worse still prevails. Yet the emphasis on the people smugglers diverts attentions away from the core problems. The search for better jobs and higher incomes still drives much of the human tide across the Mediterranean. But the economic migrants are now joined by swelling crowds of Syrians fleeing their civil war-racked country, by Somalis escaping lawlessness and sectarian strife, and by political refugees from the "Arab Spring," the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East that have traded authoritarian rule for near-anarchy in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Yemen. Many middle- and upper-class Syrians who have the means for safer travel. “All the Syrians tell us: ‘Me, if I could leave by plane (for Europe), I would buy a ticket. I would pay for accommodation,’” Chiara Montaldo, project coordinator with MédecinsSans Frontières Italy says. “Even when they arrive here, they ask us: ‘Please, can I go to the hotel? We will pay ourselves.’ But they can’t. They are obliged to travel irregularly, risk their lives, sometimes lose their lives, because the current situation doesn’t give them any other choice.” 

While all refugees are migrants, not all migrants are refugees. An increasing number are fleeing poverty rather than persecution. They come seeking work to send money home. There are no other ways to enter. There’s no common European policy on labour migration. The only way you have to migrate is to request asylum. So people are forced to migrate in an irregular way — because there are no other legal channels. Some eventually secure work permits, some fabricate stories of persecution, and a number will be returned home — at which point it is common to try again, arriving next time with a different story. A particularly common narrative among Nigerians  is to claim they are Christians from a village where the Muslim terrorists Boko Haram destroyed their church.

 The deaths last week are the result of the cynical argument advanced by the British government of Prime Minister David Cameron that, if migrants know they are likely to die in the process, they will not set out for Europe. The facts tell a different story. Many predicted that deaths on the Mediterranean would rise after Italy’s Mare Nostrum marine rescue program was replaced by the much smaller European Triton border-patrol program at the start of this year. Mare Nostrum, managed by the Italian Navy, was credited with saving more than 100,000 people in 2014. Italy could have done nothing, leaving those making the treacherous crossing to fend for themselves. It could have taken a Fortress Europe approach — turning boats back. Instead, to both its credit and its burden, it chose the humanitarian route. The country poured immense resources — the equivalent of almost $13 million a month — into intensive search-and-rescue operations along with an irregular mosaic of short- and long-term accommodation. Interceptions became routine; the new normal. But Italy felt it was handling the lion’s share of what should have been a shared EU responsibility. For many migrants, Italy is little more than a geographically convenient and receptive stopover. Their ultimate destinations, so they hope, are the stronger economies and better social safety nets of Norway, Sweden and Germany. Canada is frequently mentioned as a possible home.

Africa is rich beyond the dreams of avarice but its people have never enjoyed its riches. Both foreign and native exploiters have relegated its people to abject poverty and endemic misery for generation upon generation. If your father is a peasant farmer, and your grandfather was too, what are the chances that you’ll make something different of your life? Your chances of having better economic prospects than your parents has been relatively low in Africa.

A study looked at five African countries: Ghana, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and Madagascar, using a set of nine surveys conducted in the 1980s to early 2000s, to get a sense of the shift through generations. The five countries have a similar economic and labour market composition – all have a large rural population with agriculture as the backbone of the economy and limited earnings from natural resources (except Ghana, recently becoming an oil exporter). When computed over arable land, population density is similar across the five countries, and the vast majority of agricultural workers are smallholder farmers. Because most African economies are not growing fast enough to keep up with demographic pressures, young people entering the labour market often have to accept whatever job they are lucky to get, with the hopes that there will be better opportunities in the future.  But the study found that whatever kind of job you start out in is the field you were probably going remain in for the long term. They found that once a person starts working – in whatever job they are lucky to get – transitions were rare, particularly if you were working in agriculture. They found the occupation of parents is a huge determinant in where their children were likely to end up working: the sons of farmers were 4 to 22 times as likely to be farmers themselves, than the sons of non-farmers were. Over the course of a decade, only about 10% of workers transitioned between farm and non-farm jobs.

Lives are lost every day in the most cruel of circumstances because people flee out of despair and try to cross the sea in rickety boats. Because of human misery, because of despair, for reasons of persecution in their home countries, these people have nothing else but to take an unseaworthy boat to a European haven. In addition, they often find the circumstances awaiting them more difficult than those they fled.

We are one people

 The tragic sinkings and loss of life of migrants crossing the Mediterranean have brought into sharp focus the treatment and protection of boat migrants, including the need to respect their dignity and human rights.

Human rights watchdogs have lambasted the EU for this failure and for seemingly being more concerned with protecting its borders than with the lives and rights of people in search of protection and better opportunities. Italy, Malta and Spain currently bear the reception burden of African asylum seekers and immigrants. These countries have decried the exorbitant cost of hosting the immigrants, not to mention the material and moral obligations in shouldering the burden. However, their human rights record in the treatment of asylum seekers, including at detention centres, has elicited condemnation.

'Pre-emptive' operations are in contravention of the Geneva Conventions related to the rights of individuals to seek and apply for asylum. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has urged EU countries to process asylum claims and reform their migratory policies.

The tendency to shift blame to anyone and everyone else, including imagined threats will not help solve matters, apart from providing a distraction from the real issues -  poverty, persecution, human rights violations and armed conflicts. Youth unemployment and high poverty levels are often the cause of most of these migrations.

We should remember the victims and sympathise with the level of despair that drive migrants to leave their homes and families, to risk their lives in search of freedom and security, whether out of fear or want,

African Migrants Not Welcome In Africa

Entering Botswana from South Africa Wame Molefhe gets into conversation with a fellow Botswanian also on his way back home. The remaining narration is hers, taken from 'Letter from Botswana' in October's New Internationalist.

'I'm going home.' He would never live anywhere else, he adds. He is a true patriot, fiercely proud of the country he calls hom, he tells me. Like him, I am happy to be able to call Botswana my home, but I believe I would feel at home anywhere on African soil. But I have begun to question this idea of patriotism, when the phrase 'my people' is spoken in order to exclude. I belong to this nation not because of any achievement. I was simply born in Botswana. I know no other country as intimately. I do not feel foreign, but I know that there are those who visit Botswana who are made to feel foreign - from the minute they enter this country.
During the days of apartheid, Botswana provided a sanctuary for those fleeing the oppressive racist regime in South Africa. After the South African Defence Force raided Gaberone and killed 13 people in 1985, Botswana became somewhere to run through, rather than to. It was clear that it was no longer a place of safety, but Botswana was still lauded for having done her bit to stand up against apartheid.

Back in Gaberone city I take a walk down the road. There is a police vehicle rounding up foreigners. They are all black . . .African, I assume. And I think of the story I recently read in the newspapers, of a 96 year old man who arrived in Botswana in 1945 and has lived here since. The circumstances of his arrival I do not know. I see a picture of an old man, being wheeled out of hospital in a wheelchair. Another shows him being loaded into the back of a pick-up van, surrounded by men and women in nursing uniforms . . . the old man is being deported. I feel much shame in admitting that I am from Botswana.

(- - - - ) We continue to describe ourselves as a caring and compassionate people  but at the same time we are pulling the noose tighter around the necks of immigrants. We are smoking them out - some of them. In the same breath we call for foreign investors. I do not know who Botswana wants to embrace. It does not seem to be my fellow Africans.

A few days after the old man was expelled I learn from a news report that an ambulance was despatched to fetch him back from Zimbabwe. The reasons for this change are not known. Perhaps someone, somewhere, remembered that we are supposed to be a caring and compassionate people.

Africa, Europe, North America, Australia - what's the difference? It seems that no one wants them - except when they need them and then how are they treated?
Nationality is simply an accident of birth and patriotism a tool of ruling elites to keep sections of the populations divided in order to enhance control.
JS