Is South African Policy on Refugees differs from other African countries?

The country of Nelson Mandela have been the only sub-Sahara country to oppose the camping of refugees, who would see their lives be monitored by stakeholders such as UNHCR (UN refugees agency ),World Food Program... the policy behind this, was identified in term of pressures the government could be subjected to ,in order to compete with top world organization service providers as the living conditions of refugees could serve as a barometer of what government still have to do for its citizens, specially as its first goal was to repair the damage of apartheid legacy with more the 25 millions people living with government grants. One decade after refugees started to observe policy change in term of conspiracy, African refugees who expressed themselves “we came for Mandela” Keith Adams 2001 start to face the storm of regulation under the blind eye of the government.

South African lawyers for human rights attorney Fritz Gaerdes said in papers before court: “refugees believe that the constitution would allow them to apply to registered as security providers in a similar way that South African citizens and those who have permanent residence here do”, but Seth Mogapi, the chief executive of the Private Security Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) thought otherwise expressing his belief that this move would compromise control over the security industry such as logistical problems with checking the criminal records and possible military or other state security involvement of refugee applicants. The stranger nature of this new law came into effect in February 2002,refugees were registered and worked as security officers, since then, all application made by refugees to be registered as security guards were turned down. Some refugees and human rights lawyers believe in the supremacy of the constitutional court as the highest instance with ability to amend laws of the land or to declare them invalid, the appeal of refugees to the constitutional court seeks to protect their right and dignity to non-discrimination of persons who live in South Africa as recognized refugees. Most of applications turned down are based on the grounds that they were neither citizens nor permanent residents of South Africa. In the other hand refugees papers issued by the department of home affairs to refugees stipulate that the bearer of this kind of identification is entitled rights to work and study. Anywhere there is weak evidence on the type of security work refugees wished to do would hold on threat to the public or national security or interest, even refugees who would like to exonerate themselves they may not be successful to get certificates to prove that they have a clean record as far as PSIRA refuge to accept affidavits to that effect originated from the South African Police Services (SAPS) or from different embassies where refugees are originated. While the department of home affairs itself as the sole government institution dealing on daily basis with refugees related matters does not do enough to clarify the situation. This state of affairs have created the safe haven for South African xenophobia by nature to take the unregulated game into their own hand, as witnessed recently South African security industry has been hit by strive of security providers due to wage disputes between security company pr

oviders and security guards union SETAWU. The mystery behind those negotiations even if it still unknown, union was seeking to secure 11% increase with the company providers were willing to offer 8%, nobody could explain how the deal was been secured with determination of the union to take the strike over the period of three months (April -July 2006) followed by the unwillingness of company service providers to offer more than the initial. Anywhere the settlement has been made followed by suspensions of 80% refugees’ security guards from the industry on the grounds of not only because of using fake papers, but also as non-unionist members.

An independent research opening sensible topics while he tries to distance himself for discussions in order to invite other researchers to engage debate on the assertion, most of his researches touch development issues affecting developing countries and Africa in particular, such as” the future of affirmative action in South Africa”, “refugee plight in southern Africa, the time for South African government to admit the role of stateless (refugees) in filling the gap between black middle class and twenty millions South African living on public grants”