An asylum-seeker has 30 days to appeal against home affairs’s rejection of his application on the basis that he was using the procedure as a cover for espionage
Piers Pigou
The arrest and attempted deportation earlier last month of an asylum-seeker from Cameroon by the Department of Home Affairs has again raised concerns about the plight of those who seek sanctuary from persecution in South Africa.
Millam Atam volunteered to take a hidden camera into the home affairs offices in Braamfontein for the SABC’s documentary programme Special Assignment and was caught red-handed by officials. The Braamfontein office is South Africa’s main refugee reception centre.
Atam was promptly “arrested” and accused of working illegally for Special Assignment and the Human Rights Committee of South Africa, an NGO that monitors the activities of the department’s refugee office. He was handcuffed and taken to the Lindela Repatriation Centre, where immigration officials allegedly made urgent preparations to obtain the necessary travel documents to deport him.
A midnight court interdict brought by the University of the Witwatersrand’s law clinic on behalf of Atam successfully prevented his deportation on the grounds that domestic and international law prohibit the deportation of someone seeking asylum before the application has been considered. Atam was released from custody.
Two days later he received notification from the department that his application for asylum had been rejected. In a repetitive and garbled four-page letter written by an official apparently “specialising” in West Africa, Atam was informed that his asylum claim was “unfounded”.
In an “objective assessment of circumstances in Cameroon”, the letter set out a patchwork of issues and incidents in Cameroon from 1989 to 1998 that purport to show that the country has a functioning multiparty constitutional democracy and infers that there is adequate protection against human rights violations.
Amnesty International, however, presents a markedly different picture. The summary of its 2000 country report on Cameroon states: “Large numbers of people were extra-judicially executed in the north of the country. Torture and ill-treatment by the security forces remained routine (widespread and systematic), and prison conditions amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, resulting in a high mortality rate.
“Critics of the government, including supporters of opposition political parties, journalists and human rights activists, were harassed, arrested and imprisoned. Perpetrators of human rights violations continue to act with impunity.”
Atam’s rejection letter continues: “It is clear that you were not persecuted for writing a dissertation about the Cameroonian president. But police wanted to arrest you for being a spy because you were arrested in our office with a camera … [with which] you were going to spy on [our] offices for Special Assignment, SABC, TV programme.”
It remains to be seen whether the department can provide evidence that Atam is wanted in Cameroon on espionage charges.
The letter also accuses Atam of working illegally for the Human Rights Committee. While the Refugee Act prohibits asylum-seekers from working, it does not specify whether this also includes voluntary work.
Labour legislation defines “work” as being remunerated. The Aliens Control Act, however, does prohibit any kind of work.
Both the committee and Special Assignment deny Atam was on their payroll. He works as a volunteer on the refugee newspaper Makwerekwere produced at the committee’s offices.
The home affairs letter accuses Atam of abusing the asylum procedure for personal interest. It further claims that his failure to raise concerns through available South African channels was “proof that you came to South Africa on a fact-finding mission for people known to you”. The letter further suggests that “it might be that you are abusing the Human Rights Committee as a cover for your spying purposes”. He has 30 days in which to lodge an appeal.
Allegations of corruption at the home affairs offices have not been proved. Neither have they been effectively investigated. The department acknowledges this and accepts that corruption may be a problem, but points the finger at applicants who are corrupting its officials.
According to Human Rights Committee research director Sally Sealey, this is inevitable as in the experience of many applicants, paying money to officials is the only way of securing their services.
Sealey also points out that there are several home affairs officials who are unwilling to accept that their activities need to be monitored. “We understand that they operate under constraints, but this is no excuse for some of the behaviour and abuse of process that we have witnessed.
“Sometimes it’s very personal and seemingly vindictive and we feel this kind of treatment is ample justification that asylum-seekers and refugees require special attention.”
Ongoing monitoring, which has been sanctioned by the department’s head office, has resulted in a series of altercations between the committee and officials.
Sealey says the poor quality of Atam’s rejection letter is not uncommon and is indicative of the desperate lack of skills and resources in the Braamfontein office. This is acknowledged by the home affairs department, which says they are in the process of addressing the problem.
The onus of establishing a well-founded fear of persecution, which is the test that must be passed to secure refugee status, remains with the applicant. This is a complex process and as most applicants do not have access to legal representation, a heavy reliance is placed on their being able to adequately explain their situation. The Refugee Act states that the department will provide “competent interpretation” services “where practicable and necessary”.
Interpreters act as a vital conduit to home affairs officials and have tremendous influence in granting refugee status. They are not paid and their alleged role in corrupt practices, either individually or with home affairs officials, has been the subject of numerous complaints.
The department acknowledges this and says it has drawn up proposals for the development of a professional interpretation capacity.
Atam says he felt obliged to expose these problems as the situation was untenable.
“People react to television and somebody had to do it. A lot of South Africans don’t understand what’s going on. I wanted to provide an X-ray of what people are faced with in that office. We are not treated as human beings,” he says.
Millam Atam’s experience will be screened in a Special Assignment episode titled Stranger in A Strange Land on February 6 at 9.30pm on SABC3