Mukoni T Ratshitanga
A ZIMBABWEAN woman was arrested three times within an hour in Johannesburg this week as an illegal immigrant – even though she was legally in the country.
Roseanna T (39), who works in a hotel shop in Mutare, eastern Zimbabwe, says the first two times she was released after bribing the police; the third time she was taken to a detention centre and held overnight.
She came to South Africa a month ago to visit friends in Auckland Park and had a visa entitling her to enter the country.
She says she twice went to the city centre and had no problems. On Monday she went to Park Station to buy a rail ticket to return to Zimbabwe two days later.
She was barely out of the station when a group of uniformed policement stopped her and demanded her passport.
“I told them that I had left it at my friends’ house because I was afraid it could be stolen. They said that I was not allowed to move around without a passport in South Africa and I was under arrest.”
T says the police took her to what she thought was a charge office nearby. She did not know where it was because she does not know Johannesburg.
“They wanted a R50 bribe as a condition of release. I gave them R30 and they accepted it and freed me.
“A few minutes later another group of uniformed policemen stopped me and asked for my passport. I told them I had left it in Auckland Park. They also took me to what I thought was a police station and they too demanded a bribe as a condition of release. I gave them R20.”
T says she went to Eloff Street to get a bus to Auckland Park. A group of plainclothed men who identified themselves as policemen demanded her passport, arrested her and bundled her into a yellow police truck.
Thirty-nine people – five of them women – were in the truck. Four of the men were let off after paying R200 each.
She and the others were taken to Lindela Accommodation Centre in Randfontein on the West Rand.
T says that she saw men being assaulted at the centre. “They were hit with fists and shoes and there was a lot of screaming.” She also heard staff telling inmates that if they paid R5, relatives and friends would be phoned. But she believes that the calls were never made.
She was put into a cell for the night with other women. Breakfast was the first food she had eaten since her arrest.
Meanwhile, T’s friends became increasingly worried when she did not return home.
“I was distraught, thinking of having to tell her family that something had happened to her,” said T’s friend Carol Martin. “What I find interesting is that they put the onus on the person to prove that she is innocent.”
Martin phoned hospitals and police stations, without success. Then Park Station police advised her to try Lindela – who said she should phone back the next morning.
That’s when T was traced, and through her friends’ efforts, was released late in the morning.
Lindela disputes T’s allegations of assaults. Juda Kgotsi, who says he is the unit leader, told the Mail & Guardian: “The security personnel have no authority to release anybody. The only people who have the authority to release people are Home Affairs.
“I personally don’t allow security to beat people,” he says.
At Park Station, Sergeant ML Maoto invited T to press charges against the policemen involved. “We know that some of our policemen are very naughty. They might miss procedures,” he said.
T returned to Zimbabwe as planned on Wednesday night. She left behind a question: “I want to know if they will stop taking money from poverty or will the government give police money so that they leave people alone.”
l As reported in the M&G in February, Lindela is the country’s first private deportation camp: a central holding point for captured illegal immigrants before they are shipped home.
The ultimate owner, Dyambu Trust, was created last year by a group of high-profile African National Congress women including Adelaide Tambo and Deputy Home Affairs Minister Lindi Sisulu.
July
Link to the day
25 18 11 04
25