S. Africa Seeks to Pull Refugees’ Welcome Mat

Human rights lawyers are considering legal action against a proposed government policy to turn back refugees at South Africa’s borders.

The lawyers accuse the government of violating the nation’s Refugee Act and international conventions protecting the rights of displaced people. They also maintain that such an order would endanger the lives of people fleeing wars in other parts of Africa and would further expose South Africa to criticisms of xenophobia.

“If the [order] goes through, we will have a situation where we will effectively raise walls around our borders and not share the burden of refugee protection on our continent,” said Jacob van Garderen, refugee projects coordinator for the Pretoria-based Lawyers for Human Rights.

But government officials said the proposed policy, outlined in a recent memo from the Home Affairs Ministry’s director-general, is aimed at curbing the migration of people who already have refugee status in neighboring states considered “safe.”

These asylum-seekers want to come to South Africa because conditions are more favorable and they won’t be forced to live in refugee camps, the officials said.

“An asylum-seeker should seek refuge in the first safe country he comes to,” said Hennie Meyer, a spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry. “We have people from various African countries presenting themselves at the border, and they have obviously come across land through other [safe] countries.”

The director-general’s directive stated that the legitimacy of asylum-seekers “should be verified at ports of entry and they should be referred back [to] where they come from. If they insist on entering the republic, they should be detained.”

Meyer said the ministry believes that it is acting within the law.

Officials at the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees cautioned that, if the order to turn away refugees at the border is enacted, many legitimate asylum-seekers will be denied entry and their lives could be put at risk.

“The most important issue is effective protection,” said Bemma Donkoh, the U.N. refugee agency representative for South Africa. “We presume that a person should be given entry for the purpose of determining if that person has a legitimate case.”

Paul Stromberg, the agency’s spokesman based in Nairobi, Kenya, added: “There are very valid reasons why a refugee might want to flee to a second country. Many of the border countries are embroiled in conflict, so certain individuals may find themselves in unsafe conditions. Even if the first country is accepted to be safe for a majority of people, a refugee may still be at risk because of his or her nationality or religion.”

Van Garderen, the human rights lawyer, said neighboring countries cannot be depended on to offer adequate protection to all refugees. Angola is immersed in a long-standing civil war. Namibia has been known to deport Angolan refugees suspected of supporting their country’s UNITA rebel group. Zimbabwe and Namibia are allied with the government of Congo in its war and may not be inclined to host refugees thought to sympathize with Congolese rebels.

“What kind of commitment can we expect from them to provide protection to people they regard as their enemy?” Van Garderen said.

Border officials are currently supposed to issue temporary residence permits to refugees, who then have 14 days to apply for asylum. The new directive calls on border guards to use their own discretion in determining whether a refugee is arriving from a “safe” country.

“We would be concerned about the implications of that, and the notion of ‘safe’ country,” the U.N. refugee agency’s Donkoh said.

South Africa has received more than 62,700 applications for asylum since it began accepting asylum-seekers in 1995. Donkoh said that nearly 15,000 of the requests have been approved.

The figure is small compared with other African nations. Tanzania, for example, hosts more than 500,000 refugees. Kenya and Zambia each have more than 200,000 refugees.

Critics said South Africa’s attempts to clamp down on asylum-seekers will further highlight its reputation as being intolerant of foreigners. In recent years, refugees have been targets of several unprovoked attacks.