• • • • • • • • • • Zimbabweans being accepted a week into the RRO. The queue of Zimbabweans numbered hundreds every week – between 300 and 500 on weeks of observation.90 To summarise – despite queuing for 24 hours or more, around 2% of Zimbabweans accessed the office on any Tuesday on the 6 days we observed. On the same days, most or all people in the Horn of Africa queue accessed the office. On being questioned why the two queues moved at such different paces, with Horn of Africa countries getting preference over Zimbabweans on entering the RRO, the Head of Immigration in the Braamfontein office said they process Zimbabweans more slowly because “their queue is disorderly”.91 It was not our observation that the queue was disorderly, although it was considerably longer than the Horn of Africa queue; however by late morning when people who had been queuing for two days could observe the other queue moving in steadily and their own standing absolutely still, they tended to start asking questions of officials, and the queue at this time widened to fill most of the pavement. Among those interviewed, it is common to find individuals who have queued in excess of 15 weeks running, and who have nonetheless failed to even enter the RRO. Some individuals have been in the country for more than a year and return from time to time to try to access the RRO and fail. We spoke to individuals who had made it into the building as far as the first desk, only to be then thrown out altogether for not having a valid passport or ID on them, although this is clearly in contravention of South African refugee law.92 South African officials were personally witnessed going down the queue asking for those who had a valid passport with visa and South African entry stamp, to give them preference in accessing asylum seeker permits. This again is illegal. This process of checking passports is also used to identify those who entered South Africa before the June 2002 decision on asylum seeker status for Zimbabweans- see previous section. Such individuals are thrown out of the queue and are in danger of deportation.93 The Home Affairs guards were captured by our team on video beating Zimbabweans with long rubber truncheons in the queues outside the Braamfontein RRO, in the last week of October 2003. This supports unequivocally the many claims we received from asylum seekers of being assaulted by guards outside this RRO. Our video camera person was chased away from the Braamfontein office in October 2003, by officials who said no more Zimbabweans would be allowed into the RRO until she was gone. We were later informed that as soon as the camera was gone, people who had not been in the queue were led into the RRO by touts. Those in the queue assumed that this group were among the many who bribe to get papers, and the touts had not wanted them caught on camera entering the building without queuing. Those in the queue indicated to us those who they knew to be touts, “selling” asylum seeker permits.94 Asylum seekers queuing and human rights lawyers also noted to us that when observers of one sort or another – people with cameras, human rights officials – are outside the RRO, then more people are allowed off the pavement and into the waiting area inside, but we were also informed that this does not mean more people are actually processed on 90 The relative queues and their movement is well captured in the video produced by Solidarity Peace Trust to coincide with this report, as are other claims in this section. 91 October 2003, personal interview. 92 The issue of IDs is dealt with in more detail ahead. 93 See Appendix One, Case Two, for testimony of an asylum seeker arrested when presenting at the RRO in Durban, for having a passport that showed he had entered RSA in November 2001. 94 For more on bribery and corruption within Home Affairs, see ahead. 42