UK to deport Zimbabweans
2009-10-29 22:23
London - Britain will look at resuming deportations of Zimbabweans who have been refused asylum and will offer more cash to those who choose to return voluntarily, the government said on Thursday.
The move is a response to political developments in Zimbabwe, where veteran President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition MDC party, have set up a power-sharing government.
"There have been some positive changes to the situation in Zimbabwe over the past six months," Borders and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said in a statement. "While a great deal remains to be done ... the indiscriminate violence which marred the elections of 2008 has abated."
The government will change the £6 000 support package given to people going home voluntarily, Woolas said, replacing £1 000 of "in kind" assistance with cash payments.
Enforced returns
Woolas said the government was also preparing to resume enforced returns of failed asylum-seekers - deferred since 2006 - "as and when the political situation develops".
In 2008, Britain's Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that Zimbabweans who could not show loyalty to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party risked ill-treatment if they were returned home.
However, the British government has insisted that is no barrier to restarting returns of failed asylum seekers.
Asylum campaigners say around 11 000 Zimbabweans, many of them opponents of Mugabe, have sought asylum in Britain, and thousands have had their applications refused.
The Refugee Council, which provides advice to asylum seekers, welcomed the improvements to the help available to Zimbabweans who wish to return home, but said any consideration of enforced returns was "ludicrous".
"In the past few days allegations of arrest, intimidation and harassment of supporters of the MDC and of human rights defenders have been widely reported," said Donna Covey, the council's chief executive.
A crisis hit Zimbabwe's fragile coalition this month when the MDC said it would stop attending cabinet meetings in protest at the arrest of one of its senior officials and Mugabe's refusal to implement fully a political agreement.
"Our government is showing a cavalier attitude to the safety of refugees who have stood up for democracy and human rights .... it is of great concern that the government is now considering returns to Zimbabwe," Covey said.