I was extremely disturbed to read in the Daily Mail & Guardian the other day that the South African government had refused political asylum to Catherine Kaunda, daughter of former president Kenneth Kaunda.
I do not know the full particulars of the case. Whatever the reason, it is the right of a sovereign government to enact and enforce its own immigration laws.
But there are some governments that, because of the peculiar past of the countries in which they operate, are morally obliged to take particular care to ensure that decisions on matters like political asylum and immigration are taken out of the automatic bureaucratic mill and considered at a high political level. Israel is a good example of a country that does this.
South Africa ought to treat fellow Africans with particular care. This is because a lot of African governments went out of their way, in the bad old days of apartheid, to ensure that any South African who found his or her way into their territory was received with understanding, if not with open arms.
I am no expert on the immigration practices of other African countries, some of which are truly odious. But I can speak for my country, Ghana. After the Sharpeville killings in 1960, and the intense political repression that followed it, president Kwame Nkrumah sent aircraft to what was then Bechuanaland, and ferried from there to Accra any South African who reached that safety. It did not matter to us whether these South Africans were black or white.
Later on, when Nkrumah realised the apartheid intelligence machine could infiltrate Ghana, he made it a condition of entry into the country that South African citizens must first sign a declaration stating they were opposed to apartheid. In return for our solidarity with the struggle, the apartheid government declared Ghana a “communist” state, none of whose citizens were to be allowed into South Africa.
Whether the Ghana government in fact offered South Africans as much welcome and assistance as possible is up to our former guests to judge, not us.
Now, I do realise the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Home Affairs may not be the most politically enlightened people in South Africa. But they ought, at least, to know where the political masters whose policies they are supposed to be carrying out are coming from. Shouldn’t they be aware of what Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda contributed towards the liberation of South Africa?
Kaunda provided sanctuary for the top African National Congress leadership for many years, with the result that his people suffered a great deal at the hands of the apartheid regime. There were many murderous commando raids by South African agents into Zambia.
But above all, because Zambia would not use the South African ports upon which it had traditionally relied for its international trade, its economy suffered a severe battering. It expended much money by going to the trouble of constructing a whole new railway link (called Tanzam, to begin with and now known as Tazara) just to try and keep its export/import trade alive.
Of course there were lapses in the Zambians’ hospitality towards their South African guests. There were high-handed negotiations with the apartheid-mongers which must have irked the ANC. And Zambian hospitality could be Spartan.
I was once a member of an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee investigating team sent to Zambia to find out whether the Unity Movement of South Africa (UMSA), led by the late Isaac Tabata, should be accorded recognition by the OAU. When Tabata took us to the “camp” the Zambians had opened for UMSA a few dozen kilometres from Lusaka, we were shocked to find that the UMSA cadres had been dumped in the bush with very few supplies. To his embarrassment, Tabata was nearly lynched by the cadres before our eyes.
But such lapses come with the territory. Not every Zambian entrusted with the care of foreign guests could be as idealistic as Kaunda, could they?
So in my estimation, no Zambian citizen should ever be denied residence in South Africa without political approval at the highest level.
And that goes for many other African countries as well, especially Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe, countries which South Africa owes a great deal. At the very least, the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is fast gaining a reputation as the home of South African xenophobia, must be made to research the relationships between African countries and the South African liberation movements, and to reciprocate the treatment given to South Africans by African countries in the bad old days.
Of course there are bad people traversing Africa these days with cocaine and Mandrax in their possession. Certainly those people must be stopped at all costs. But it is the duty of the authorities to find evidence against criminals. To deny admission to Africans, on suspicion that they might be criminals, is simply unjust.
Would South Africa deny the application for residence of anyone called Blair? Or Clinton? Or even Thatcher? To deny asylum to a person called Kaunda is just plain dumb.
But maybe it is not surprising. A South African friend remarked that “amnesia” has broken out in the new South Africa like an uncontrollable epidemic. Wives and children of returning South Africans have been forgotten in Europe, the United States and Africa. Some have even been brought back to South Africa just to be dumped and forgotten, while the people to whom they look for protection look after business.
Sorry guys, but that is how nations lose their souls.