Pre-existing cross border movement When is a Zimbabwe immigrant a refugee, when we have a long history of economic immigrants from Zimbabwe? [Barry Gilder, Director General, Dept of Home Affairs: Interview, October 2004 48] The point needs to be made that this exodus since 2000 is different from the long-standing cross border movement of Zimbabweans, particularly from Matabeleland, which borders South Africa. There are strong historical and cultural ties between the SiNdebele of Zimbabwe and the Zulus in South Africa. Their languages are nearly identical and they have a common cultural ancestry. There were also strong political ties between ZAPU, a Zimbabwean liberation political party that existed until 1987 and the ANC of South Africa. During the 1980s massacres in Matabeleland, when an estimated 20,000 SiNdebele were murdered and thousands more tortured and persecuted by the current Zimbabwean government, there was a large wave of refugees who fled to South Africa from Matabeleland. Many of these never returned; they now have permanent residence and are fully integrated in South Africa. There has also always been a large group of migrant workers from Matabeleland working as gardeners and in other jobs where their status may not have been regularised, but who have nonetheless made homes in South Africa. Zimbabweans who were well established provided a network and a safety net for others coming and going for shorter periods of time. SiNdebelespeaking Zimbabweans are very hard to distinguish from South Africans and until the more recent influx of Zimbabweans, who now for the first time include many Shona-speakers, not much attention was paid to Zimbabweans by the authorities. The old safety nets are however now no longer enough as the influx has soared, and many of those fleeing to South Africa now, are not from parts of the country that have produced migrants in the past, but are from all corners of Zimbabwe. The old extended cross border family system cannot cope, or is entirely non existent for many exiles, which is why thousands of Zimbabweans now arrive in South Africa with nowhere to go. There are no clear figures on how large the group of naturalised and semi-naturalised Zimbabweans might be, but some key informants have put the number at possibly half a million. This 500,000 is not taken into consideration in the estimate of 3,4 million who have left in the past four years, or the 1,2 million estimated to have newly arrived in South Africa. Internal loss of professional skills Within Zimbabwe, many of the few highly qualified people who remain in the country have left their formal professions for the informal sector, as salaries fail to keep pace with soaring inflation. It is possible to make more money buying and selling black market commodities than to earn a salary as a teacher, nurse, lawyer or engineer.49 Furthermore, many rural teachers and nurses left their professions and headed into the towns to take other jobs after political persecution linked to elections. 48 All quotes attributed to Barry Gilder in this report are from a videoed interview with the authors on the 18 October 2004. 49 IRIN, Skills lost in “internal” brain drain, 13 August 2003. 30