POLICE ARREST 244 ZIMBABWEAN MIGRANTS IN JOBURG

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRETORIA 001356

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV PREF PHUM SF
SUBJECT: POLICE ARREST 244 ZIMBABWEAN MIGRANTS IN JOBURG

REF: A. PRETORIA 0770

B. PRETORIA 0771


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SUMMARY
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1. On July 3 police in Johannesburg conducted a midnight
raid of the area around the Central Methodist Church,
arresting 344 mainly Zimbabweans sleeping in the street.
Rights organizations condemned the police action as
"heavy-handed" and "disproportionate" and promised to defend
the detainees in court. The city is making token efforts to
provide shelter for a small number of the thousands of
homeless Zimbabwean migrants thronging its downtown at night.
National policy on Zimbabwean migrants remains unclear,
however, and rights groups are concerned about possible
signals that the "identity card" scheme announced in April
(reftels) may not be implemented. End Summary.

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POLICE RAID DOWNTOWN CHURCH
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2. Around midnight on Friday July 3, police arrested 344
persons in downtown Johannesburg who were sleeping on the
streets around the Central Methodist Church. The arrested
were homeless men, women, and children, mostly Zimbabwean
migrants but some also destitute South Africans. Witnesses
from Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF),which operates a clinic
at the church, accused the police of "manhandling" the
detainees and threatening them with stun guns. A police
spokesperson denied any mistreatment. In a joint operation
by the South African Police Service (SAPS) and metropolitan
police, the 244 were taken into custody, to pay an immediate
fine of 300 rand (US$38) or face charges in court the
following Monday of loitering, public indecency, and public
disorder. A police spokesman said the SAPS intended to
continue such raids.


3. The Church has for years been a haven for foreign
migrants, and a source for contraversy in the community.
Over the past year the crisis in Zimbabwe has swelled the
Church's overnight population of homeless persons seeking
shelter to as many as five thousand persons, including more
than a hundred permanently housed children. The Church's
Bishop Paul Verryn is a hero to rights groups and has been
glowingly profiled in the media (including on CNN),and the
Church was defended in court this year by Nelson Mandela's
own former lawyer George Bizos. Local businesses and
residents, however, continue to lodge official actions and
legal challenges against the Church, complaining of mess and
smell (mainly due to lack of sanitation facilities),crowds,
and even crime.

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NGO'S CONDEMN POLICE ACTION
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4. Rights organizations condemned the police action and
promised to defend the detainees in court. Press quoted the
Legal Resource Center (LRC) saying the raid was
"heavy-handed" and "disproportionate." In a July 5 joint
statement, LRC joined Lawyers for Human Rights and the AIDS
Law Project in accusing the SAPS of "an egregious abuse of
the police's power to arrest" for such petty offences as
loitering, in a move that "serves no purpose other than to
intimidate people who are already impoverished and
marginalised." The statement called for the immediate
release of the detainees, especially of vulnerable minors and
pregnant women, explicitly contradicting prior police claims
that they would immediately free women and children. Lawyers
said they had been refused access to the detainees but would
defend them at the hearing on Monday.

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Q --------------
POLICY TURN? OR COMMUNITY FRUSTRATION?
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5. Spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Ronnie
Mamoepa said DHA was not involved in the raid, but he did not
distance DHA from the action. Mamoepa's only response on
policy questions was a vague "The solution is to resolve the
situation in Zimbabwe," urging foreign nations to lift
sanctions against that country. Johannesburg municipal
authorities, meanwhile, said they were nearing completion of

PRETORIA 00001356 002 OF 002


plans for temporary shelters for just over a thousand
migrants. The municipality's efforts to house some
Zimbabwean migrants have been months in the making, and they
are insufficient to support the thousands in need, but the
city has demonstrated a will to assist despite bearing the
brunt of the migrant influx.


6. COMMENT: National policy towards Zimbabweans remains
ambiguous, as reflected in Mamoepa's noncommital remarks. In
early April the lame-duck DHA Minister announced plans for an
"identity card" enabling all Zimbabweans to remain in South
Africa (refs A, B),but NGOs were anxious whether the new
administration in May would honor the pledge. In late May
the new DHA Minister fed those fears by saying the card
scheme was "not scrapped, just on the back burner." The
weekend's police raids could signal a reversion to tougher
tactics of arrest and deportation. Alternatively, however,
the police and Home Affairs are frequently out of sync on
immigration issues, and the raids could simply reflect a
localized police reaction to long-simmering community
frustration. It is too early yet to read policy significance
into a regrettable weekend event. END COMMENT.



CONNERS