[Isn”t it incredible that 1/4 of Zimbabwe”s population – mostly Blacks – have fled that country in the last 5 years? Unbelievable huh? Mugabe is a complete maniac.

As more Zimbabweans flee Zimbabwe, the scene is actually being set for them to prepare for a struggle if they wanted to. This could actually backfire against Mugabe in a big way, if people with strategic insight actually exploited these opportunties. Jan]

Harare – Zimbabweans fleeing President Robert Mugabe™s urban clean-up campaign have begun flocking into neighbouring countries to seek refuge there often as illegal immigrants, the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) has said. The Pretoria-based forum said the number of Zimbabweans that have approached its offices for help to apply for asylum in South Africa and Botswana – the favourite regional destinations for displaced Zimbabweans – has more than trebbled to 800 per week in the last two weeks. But ZEF co-ordinator Gabriel Shumba said several more Zimbabweans were simply slipping into neighbouring countries to quietly settle there as illegal immigrants because many believed it was futile to apply for asylum because they perceive regional governments as too reluctant to accord refugee status to Zimbabweans. “A lot of the people want legal advice and assistance on how to apply for asylum in South Africa and Botswana. Others say they just left Zimbabwe with nothing after the clean up exercise robbed them of their livelihoods and shelter,” said Shumba. “(But) most of those fleeing the country will end up settling as illegal immigrants,” added Shumba, whose group offers legal and humanitarian assistance to Zimbabweans living abroad after fleeing home because of hunger or political persecution.

There were more than four million Zimbabweans or more than a quarter of the country™s 12 million people living abroad, many of them in South Africa, Botswana, Britain, United States and New Zealand, before the latest exodus triggered by Mugabe™s controversial clean-up exercise which he says is necessary to restore the beauty of Zimbabwe™s cities and smash crime. But main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says the campaign is a Pol Pot-style scheme to depopulate urban areas, where his Movement for Democratic Change party enjoys more support, and push people into rural areas where they are easy to manipulate. More than 46 000 informal traders were arrested in the last five weeks and close to a million people cast onto the streets without food or clean water after the police and soldiers demolished shanty towns and backyard cottages in urban areas. The international community has roundly condemned Zimbabwe™s urban renewal exercise and the United Nations and the African Union have sent envoys to Harare to probe the mass eviction of poor families from urban areas.

From Zim Online (SA), 7 July
Source: WWW.ZwNews.Com