US embassy cable - 05GABORONE939

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GABORONE 000939 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
AF/S FOR MALONEY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, SMIG, KCRM, PHUM, ZI, BC, Zimbabwe 
SUBJECT: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FUELS RISING CRIME 
 
 
1. (U)  SUMMARY:  With the situation in Zimbabwe growing 
ever more desperate, illegal immigrants from there 
continue to stream into Francistown, the largest city 
near the border, at roughly the same rate as in 2004. 
Desperation has fuelled a rising crime rate, particularly 
theft and prostitution, which is being blamed on illegal 
Zimbabwean immigrants.  Interlocutors from the Botswana 
Police Service, local government and civil society have 
no evidence that Zimbabweans are being trafficked into or 
through Botswana.  Cross-border familial ties and the 
demand for cheap labor will likely keep frustration with 
rising crime from translating into demands that the GOB 
will pressure the Mugabe regime for change.  END SUMMARY. 
 
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM ZIMBABWE CONTINUES 
 
2. (U) Poloff visited Francistown week of June 28th to 
update the situation. Zimbabweans continue to move back 
and forth across the border with Botswana illegally, but 
their numbers appear not to have increased significantly 
so far this year.  In a June 28 meeting, Officer 
Commanding for District 1 (greater Francistown) Mr. 
Boikhutso Dintwa told Poloff that police officers in his 
district had arrested 2,110 illegal immigrants in May 
2005, 2,003 in April, 1,751 in March, 1,156 in February 
and 2,010 in January, virtually all Zimbabweans.  He 
described these numbers as roughly equal with those 
recorded during the same time frame in 2004.  In a 
separate meeting, Commanding Officer at the Center for 
Illegal Immigrants Mr. Diseko told Poloff that the number 
of Zimbabweans passing through his facility so far this 
year did not differ significantly from the previous year. 
Mr. Dintwa indicated that on June 29 and 30, the GOB 
would conduct the first "clean-up" campaign of the year 
designed to round up illegal immigrants and deport them. 
These operations typically occur on a quarterly basis, he 
said. 
 
IMMIGRANTS FUELING CRIME 
 
3. (U)  The incidence of crime in Francistown is rapidly 
rising, Deputy Mayor Mrs. Rebecca Nshakazhogwe told 
Poloff, that most residents blame the Zimbabwean illegal 
immigrants.  She and an assistant relayed a series of 
anecdotes about instances in which they personally had 
been victimized.  Not only is crime becoming more common, 
Nshakazhogwe explained, but also the perpetrators are 
growing more aggressive.  City residents have responded 
by forming neighborhood watch committees and sometimes 
resorting to vigilante justice.  So far, however, this 
has done little to contain the problem. 
 
4. (U)  According to Mr. Dintwa, most break-ins in the 
city appear to be the work of Zimbabweans.  Often, he 
said, thieves will jump the border just after dusk and 
walk through open fields into town.  After breaking into 
and pilfering from several houses, they will walk back 
across the border before sunrise with their loot.  The 
GOB has discovered that the deployment of Botswana 
Defense Force soldiers around the farms between 
Francistown and the border tends to coincide with a 
decrease in such robberies.  The border is too long, 
soldiers too few and costs to great to maintain such a 
deployment indefinitely, however. 
 
PRESSURE FOR HARDER LINE ON MUGABE NOT FORTHCOMING 
 
5. (U)  Despite the rising crime caused by illegal 
immigration from Zimbabwe, the residents of Francistown 
are not yet exerting significant pressure on the GOB to 
alter its relationship the Mugabe regime.  No public 
meeting, regardless of its subject, can conclude without 
someone expressing dire concern about illegal immigration 
and the proliferation of crime in Francistown, District 
Commissioner Mrs. Syliva Muzila told Poloff.  Yet, she 
estimated, at least one in four Francistown residents 
house an illegal immigrant.  Many of these are relatives 
of Batswana who have opened their homes out of sympathy 
for the plight of their kin in Zimbabwe. 
 
6. (U)  In addition to the familial bonds that span the 
border, Francistown residents have found illegal 
immigrants a convenient source of cheap labor.  Mrs. 
Muzila, who sits on a committee that reviews applications 
for work permits in the district, indicated that almost 
every application is for a Zimbabwean to work as a maid 
or farm hand.  For every farmer or house owner who goes 
through official channels to obtain a work permit for an 
unskilled laborer, there must be several who employ 
illegal immigrants informally. 
 
PROSTITUTION RISING, NO EVIDENCE OF TRAFFICKING 
 
7. (U)  Although prostitution is clearly a growing 
problem in Francistown, no evidence has emerged that this 
involves trafficking in persons.  Mr. Dintwa told Poloff 
that his police stations had received no reports of 
people forced or coerced into sex work.  He believed that 
the vast majority of prostitutes in Francistown were 
Zimbabwean women struggling to survive.  Periodically, he 
said, these women returned to Zimbabwe to share some of 
their earnings with their families.  He complained that 
Botswana law made it difficult to convict someone for 
prostitution, so the best the police could do is use laws 
against loitering in a vain effort to clear the streets. 
 
8. (U)  Local government officials echoed Dintwa's 
comments.  In separate conversations, District 
Commissioner Syliva Muzila and Deputy Mayor Rebecca 
Nshakazhogwe confirmed that commercial sex work appeared 
to be flourishing in Francistown.  Neither had 
encountered any evidence that the individuals involved 
were victims of trafficking. 
 
9. (U)  Staff of the Matshelo Community Development 
Association (MCDA), which works with communities at high 
risk of contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS, also did not 
believe trafficking to be a problem in Francistown.  MCDA 
has teams of peer educators in sixteen locations 
primarily in eastern Botswana.  Most of these volunteers 
are former sex workers.  Mrs. Motlhabani, Coordinator of 
the NGO, told PolOff on June 28, that none of MCDA's 
volunteers had reported any examples of trafficking. 
 
10. (U)  She explained to PolOff that while there were 
"brothels" in Francistown, the proprietors generally were 
landlords charging rent but not attempting to force 
people into sex work.  Motlhabani explained that often 
women are not fulltime prostitutes.  Many turn to sex 
work only when they are desperate for cash.  Once their 
financial situation improves, they leave the streets only 
to return if their luck runs out again. 
 
COMMENT 
 
11. (SBU)  Many Batswana feel an historical sense of 
indebtedness to Zimbabwe because of the numbers of 
Batswana who studied or worked there in the early 1980s 
when they saw Zimbabwe as a land of opportunity.  This, 
in addition to familial ties binding many Batswana to 
Zimbabweans, the demand for cheap labor in Botswana, and 
the GOB's desire to maintain cordial relations in the 
region result in a patience with and willingness to incur 
certain costs as a result of the crisis in Zimbabwe. 
Although it is impossible to say when the Mugabe regime 
will exhaust that patience, slowing economic growth is 
likely to push more migrants into crime, thereby 
hastening that time.  Much will depend, however, on the 
enigmatic next President's disposition toward Mugabe, 
which Post will continue to investigate. 
 
12. (U)  The International Labor Organization is 
administering a project called "Toward the Elimination of 
the Worst Forms of Child Labor" (TECL), which will 
include an assessment of commercial sexual exploitation 
of children in Botswana.  Poloff has met with Dr. Okello- 
Wengi, the contractor who will conduct this research, to 
share with him some contacts to facilitate a thorough 
investigation.  According to Dr. Okello-Wengi, an escort 
service based in Tlokweng, a suburb of Gaborone, is 
rumoured to be trafficking children across the border to 
South Africa.  Post will follow up on this issue and 
continue to investigate all reports of trafficking and 
monitor the process of the TIP-related TECL research 
program. 
 
HUGGINS