thabo buthelezi finds out how it feels to flee Robert Mugabe’s regime the hard way |
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It is 6pm and I'm about to achieve a dream that is shared by many of my young countrymen. I am going to leave behind the fear, misery and poverty of life under Mugabe. I am going to escape from Zimbabwe to South Africa.
In truth, as a registered journalist with a visa in my passport, I can enter South Africa whenever I wish. But thousands of Zimbabweans can't. Instead they choose the method I am trying tonight - climbing the border fence between the two countries.
There to stop us will be the South African border patrols, who will arrest us if we surrender and shoot us if we make a run
for it.
I'm at the border town of Beitbridge, about a kilometre from the checkpoint. At a local filling station I join a group of 14 young men, all from Tsholotsho in Matabeleland. I tell them I want to escape into Mzansi Africa, as |
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| Border patrols will arrest us if we surrender or shoot us if we make a run for it |
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we call South Africa, and I'm made welcome.
When night falls, our leader, a young man called Mandla, takes us quietly across the bush until we can see the border fence. It's a three-metre-high maze of barbed and razor wire - ironically a leftover from South Africa's apartheid days when it was built to stop ANC guerrillas infiltrating the country.
Before we can attempt to climb the fence a South African border patrol shows up. At a word from Mandla we scatter in the dark. The patrol passes on, and we regroup. We find seven of our number have disappeared.
Now we tackle the fence. Razor wire looks vicious, but there are ways of crossing it. I struggle at first, but a cunningly placed jacket, a roll over the top, a couple of scratches, and I'm across. So are the others. We congratulate each other. We are in South Africa.
We are met by the Omalayitsha - an organisation of highly paid human smugglers - who load us into a truck and take us south to Johannesburg.
During the journey we learn tragic news. Three of the seven who disappeared at the  |
