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INTRODUCTION
As Africa and the world celebrated the dawn of a new millennium, Zimbabwe was showing many symptoms of ‘crisis’ and collapse (Moore Reference Moore2001). The country was engulfed in a political crisis unknown since the post-colonial state withdrew the 5th Brigade from Matabeleland South in late 1984 (Alexander Reference Alexander1998). What was once a vibrant, self-sustaining economy was on life support – only surviving through the benevolence of Botswana and South Africa. The traffic of vehicles drawing huge trailers, packed precariously high – with everything including formerly basic goods (consumables, household furniture and building material) – was, by then, a familiar sight on Matabeleland roads. The situation in the country was beginning to generate a migration crisis in neighbouring South Africa – the new diaspora – as people left Zimbabwe en masse, and subsequently, an increasing demand for the movement of goods and people. In the ensuing chaos, Ndebele cross-border transporters, otherwise known as omalayisha, were caught in an academic and media scramble. They were portrayed as a human-smuggling syndicate, involved in what has sometimes been termed the ‘new slave trade’.
However, this representation of what became known as the malayisha system provides a rather narrow view of an institution that has played a significant role in Ndebele society, and must be assessed in this context.Footnote 1
The malayisha system developed in an environment where many rural livelihoods had been destroyed by a combination of perennial harvest crises in the 1980s and 1990s and structural adjustment policies (ESAP) – economic liberalisation measures adopted by the government of Zimbabwe in 1992 to stimulate economic growth, following a less than satisfactory economic performance and high budget deficits. The rapid ‘same day or overnight’ service bridged the geographical gap between Johannesburg and even remote areas of Matabeleland, and by moving people, goods and cash remittances, it provided an apparently sustainable and seamless exchange between labour and its earnings. The system became key to the struggle of Ndebele households to reconstruct their livelihoods. Labels gain prominence in people's vocabulary because they carry certain significance to their lives. While the term ukulayisha literally means ‘to transport’, to many Ndebele people umalayisha came to mean livelihood and hope – brought with all the love, direct from the South African diaspora!
This article draws on data from a wide-ranging study carried out between 2007 and 2009 on Ndebele migration into South Africa. The study detailed the migrants, their survival strategies and remittance behaviour, and channels through which remittances were made. Using accounts drawn from a purposive sample of 147 Ndebele migrants in the Gauteng Province, and a review of literature on Matabeleland, I undertook an extended assessment of the significance of the malayisha system for the lives and livelihoods of the different actors involved from their perspective: the migrants who relied on these channels for maintaining their home base, the omalayisha who acted as informal channels for remittances, and the recipient households. Migrant accounts were drawn exclusively from those who had patronised the malayisha system as a channel of remittances, as passengers themselves or to smuggle relatives into South Africa, and, to protect their identity, all respondents were assigned pseudonyms. Although these accounts are drawn from a relatively small section of Ndebele migrants, they correlate with data from other studies conducted in migrant communities in the region (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010; SPT 2009; Thebe Reference Thebe2009). Understanding this channel of remittances through an extended engagement, using the perspective of the various actors involved, provides a view that I argue challenges the understanding of ukulayisha as the ‘new slave trade’. The accounts provide an insight into how a combination of natural and economic crises contributed to a collapse of livelihoods, and how omalayisha provided a constant flow of goods and cash to Matabeleland and migrants to South Africa. Overtime, their services became highly sought after, by migrants supplying remittances to Matabeleland and people seeking a livelihood across the country's borders. Below, I set out the context that positioned omalayisha as central and indispensable agents in the survival of Ndebele households, before turning to ukulayisha as an informal channel of exchange involving remittances and people between Matabeleland, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg, South Africa.
NDEBELE MIGRATION AND THE MATABELELAND CRISIS
Ndebele migration to South Africa and the subsequent need for informal channels of remittances to the Matabeleland hinterland should be understood in the context of crisis in Matabeleland since 1982. The crisis resulted from the loss of urban-based livelihoods following the adoption of structural adjustment measures in 1992, combined with climatic uncertainty and perennial droughts in an already impoverished rural environment, and generated perceptions of exclusion and marginalisation (Alexander & McGregor Reference Alexander and McGregor2001; Musemwa Reference Musemwa2006; Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Ndlovu-Gatsheni2008). However, the crisis in Matabeleland needs to be explored historically. It has its roots in the colonial conquest of 1893, and the process of capitalist accumulation that followed. It has also been linked to the Zanu-PF policy of coercive subjugation of the opposition (Alexander & McGregor Reference Alexander, McGregor and Broch-Due2005) and what is regarded by some as its failed nation-building project (Alexander Reference Alexander1991; Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Ndlovu-Gatsheni2008). With regard to the colonial conquest of the Ndebele in 1893, and its subsequent consolidation, the settler administration used a variety of statutes to create a world of ‘natives’ from a mix of ethnic groups (Muzondidya & Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni2007: 278) and determined where they were to settle (Moyana Reference Moyana1984). In the case of the Ndebele, the basis for their geographical world was the 1894 Matabeleland Order-in-Council, through whose provision two ‘waterless and malarial tracts’ were allocated as reserves for the settlement of natives (Alexander et al. Reference Alexander, McGregor and Ranger2000; Boahen Reference Boahen1985; Chigora & Guzura Reference Chigora and Guzura2008; Worby Reference Worby2001: 481). The delimiting of reserves continued until 1914, and by 1950, more of the 42,000 square miles of land between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers had been allocated as either Native Purchase Areas (NPA) in 1930 or Special Native Areas (SNA) (Prescott Reference Prescott1961). Native reserves and other native areas were found in three natural regions in Matabeleland (region 1 – extensive ranching; region 2 – semi-extensive beef production; region 3 – semi-intensive mixed farming), two of which experience climatic conditions that limit crop production in the absence of irrigation.Footnote 2 To illustrate, half the native reserves occupied two regions classified as only suitable for extensive ranching, and with regard to all native land, 36% was situated in semi-extensive beef-producing regions, with only 14% of land deemed suited for crop production.
This did not, however, prevent households from producing crops. On the contrary, the new dispensation and reconfiguration of boundaries meant that stockholders had to produce grain in addition to rearing livestock (Prescott Reference Prescott1961). However, the prevailing pattern of agricultural practices, although varying, reflected what has been described elsewhere in Africa as ‘shifting cultivation’ (Richards Reference Richards1958). As Prescott (Reference Prescott1961: 216) observed,
a man will start with 2 acres and each year gradually extend his farm until at the end of the fourth year he will have 4 acres under crops. He will then allow the first cleared area to revert to bush. Although there is no definite fallow period it is believed that land in this area takes an average of thirty years to regenerate … This means that a man with one wife will need at least 34 acres of arable land if he is to farm without shortening the fallow period. Most men have two or three wives and so their arable needs are greater. There is thus shifting cultivation in all areas.
By the end of World War II, the dearth of land in African reserves, overcrowding and overstocking, had reached alarming proportions, resulting in massive degradation and decreased arable area (Phimister Reference Phimister1993; Prescott Reference Prescott1961). As a temporary relief, and also to accommodate tenants evicted from large estates, the colonial state extended native areas into unallocated areas (Lebert Reference Lebert, Rosset, Patel and Courville2006; Prescott Reference Prescott1961). This state also adopted a highly interventionist approach in the management of native areas – directing peasant production, controlling land-use, and determining who could have access to land through the provisions of the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA) of 1951 (Thompson Reference Thompson2004; Wolmer & Scoones Reference Wolmer and Scoones2000). In both theory and practice, the NLHA was concerned more with good land husbandry and conservation, which according to Duggan (Reference Duggan1990: 228) ‘seldom raise productivity but rather prevent further decline’.
The second element of the crisis, closely related to the first, also has its roots in the colonial conquest of 1893. The consolidation of colonial conquest took two forms: impoverishment of indigenous people through expropriation of land and cattle, and the creation of non-self sustaining communities, dependent on the sale of labour for livelihoods (Duggan Reference Duggan1990; Stoneman & Cliffe Reference Stoneman and Cliffe1989). The need to incorporate African labour into the capitalist mode of production – albeit at cheaper rates and through restrictive legislation – made the creation of a semi-proletarian class central to the country's development framework (Arrighi Reference Arrighi1966; Potts & Mutambirwa Reference Potts and Mutambirwa1990). The worker-peasantry, domiciled in the native areas and yet available as cheap labour, was to become a dominant feature in Rhodesia's development policy until after World War II (Bush & Cliffe Reference Bush and Cliffe1984; Duggan Reference Duggan1990). The native areas remained neglected, and neglect and declining productivity ensured a continuous flow of cheap labour for European employers (Duggan Reference Duggan1990).
The worker-peasantry had served the settler economy well, but changes in the economy in the 1950s informed a policy U-turn, dismantling the worker-peasantry, and establishing instead an urban-based proletariat and a rural peasantry by denying urban migrants rural land (Bush & Cliffe Reference Bush and Cliffe1984; Duggan Reference Duggan1990). While this policy was mutually compatible with industrial interests for permanent labour, it was not without contradictions. As Duggan (Reference Duggan1990: 229) noted,
reserve agriculture subsidized a worker's youth, old age and family; employers, however, were not threatened with the necessity of making up for the lost subsidy through higher wages, for high unemployment rates throughout the 1950s kept wages low. Africans themselves clung to the urban-rural ties, and their resistance contributed to the abandonment of the NLHA policy in the early 1960s.
At independence in 1980, the post-colonial state saw the land reform programme as a necessary reinvention of this discarded colonial policy, creating farming rather than enterprising households that could engage in off-farm activities, but abandoning the policy in haste in 1990 (Chimhowu & Hulme Reference Chimhowu and Hulme2006: 732). With regard to Matabeleland, post-colonial state policy is often hampered by the ‘post-colonial violence and its memory’ (Alexander et al. Reference Alexander, McGregor and Ranger2000), and state motivation to discipline what it considered a recalcitrant region (Musemwa Reference Musemwa2006). The relationship between Zanu-PF and Zapu, and failed attempts by the former to build a nation state, is crucial in the post-colonial state's treatment of the region (Alexander Reference Alexander1991; Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Ndlovu-Gatsheni2008). Jocelyn Alexander (Reference Alexander1994: 326) has argued that, between 1982 and 1987, the Zanu-PF government subjugated and later absorbed Zapu ‘through a brutal campaign of repression, which formed part of its attempt to consolidate control over the “nation” to create political “unity”’. The conflict between Zanu-PF and Zapu had an ethnic dimension, enacted and reproduced through the political split in 1963 (Muzondidya & Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni2007: 281) and, subsequently, ‘the historical accidents of recruitment patterns in the liberation war’, and the history of animosity and mistrust between the two movements, their leadership and their respective armed wings (Alexander Reference Alexander1998: 152; Musemwa Reference Musemwa2006). Indeed, in the 1980 election, voting largely followed the regional and ethnic divide established during the liberation war (Alexander Reference Alexander1998). This proved very significant in Zanu-PF's post-independence policy towards Matabeleland.
Following incidents of banditry in Matabeleland, in which six foreign tourists were abducted and killed, and the discovery of arms caches on Zapu farm properties, the post-colonial state sanctioned the deployment of the army, the police Support Units and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) in Matabeleland in 1982, and a North Korean-trained special militia, the 5th Brigade or Gukurahundi, in 1983 (Alexander Reference Alexander1998; CCJP & LRF 1997). The ethnic dimension was explicit in the 5th Brigade campaign in the region – attacking ‘Zapu’ as ‘Ndebele’ and, ultimately, ‘Ndebele’ as ‘dissident’ (Alexander & McGregor Reference Alexander, McGregor and Broch-Due2005: 81; Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Ndlovu-Gatsheni2008). From its deployment in Matabeleland North in 1982 to its withdrawal from Matabeleland South in 1983, the unit engaged in a series of human rights violations, the list of which include abductions, rape, torture and death, at the extreme, and cultural imperialism and indoctrination (CCJP & LRF 1997; Musemwa Reference Musemwa2006; Muzondidya & Ndlovu-Gatsheni Reference Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni2007: 286). The Gukurahundi activities were directed not at armed dissidents, but at everyone in Matabeleland (Alexander Reference Alexander1998; CCJP 2008). As the CCJP (2008) has shown, the Gukurahundi was a parallel force to state security forces (the conventional army, paratroopers, CIO and Police Support Unit), and fought its war against unarmed civilians.
Alongside state repression, resource allocation remained skewed against Ndebele regions, and people felt abandoned and marginalised by the state. Despite its history of land alienation, Matabeleland fared badly on land allocation, mainly due to the conflict (Alexander Reference Alexander1991; Alexander & McGregor Reference Alexander and McGregor2001). Even so, after the Unity Accord (1987), a crisis of expectation soon developed among the rural and urban populace. Musemwa (Reference Musemwa2006: 249) noted that ‘the people's frustration with the slow pace of development … was translated into perceptions of past and present abandonment and ethnic discrimination’. It was this feeling of abandonment – played out in a context of perennial crop failure, a semi-proletarian culture, economic uncertainty, and a long history of labour export and social networks in South Africa – that set the scene for Ndebele diasporisation to South Africa and, subsequently, the demand for channels of remittances.
OMOLAYISHA AS AN INFORMAL CHANNEL OF REMITTANCES
Cross-border vehicles, drawing trailers packed precariously high, have been a common sight on Matabeleland roads since the late 1990s. While operators' memories of the exact time may be faulty, the general consensus is that the frequency of these vehicles coincided with three unprecedented trends in the region and the country. First, perennial rain failure prevalent in semi-arid areas of Zimbabwe and the El Nino-induced floods during the 1999/2000 planting season led to a series of harvest crises. These series of shocks came soon after households had shed all their productive assets and savings during previous periods of stress, increasing households' vulnerability in the process (Bird & Shepherd Reference Bird and Shepherd2003). Secondly, the loss of formal jobs, remittances and the subsequent economic decline, which were the unexpected results of the government's liberalising project adopted between 1992 and 1995. Third and last, the increase in out-migration from Matabeleland into South Africa and the corresponding increased demand for the transport of goods to the Matabeleland hinterland (see Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010; SPT 2009).
Before 1990, migrants who had goods to remit did so either through personal delivery or collection by the beneficiaries; otherwise, the transportation of remittances posed major challenges (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010; SPT 2009). According to early migrants, even personal deliveries and collected goods were transported through formal passenger carriers. These passenger carriers, which also drew trailers, were operated by Zimbabwean and South African entrepreneurs, and terminated at the main City Hall car park in Bulawayo and Noord Street in Johannesburg. However, this formalised service failed to accommodate migrants' needs for the movement of unaccompanied remittances. As others have noted, most migrants were undocumented, and therefore avoided formal channels (e.g. Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010; Zinyama Reference Zinyama, Tevera and Zinyama2002). It was the general demand for a convenient channel of remittances to rural south-western districts of Matabeleland that gave birth to the cross-border goods transport industry. Soon after, there was a surge of transporters, carrying goods, money and people to rural Plumtree, Tsholotsho and Kezi. The channel soon acquired a label omalayisha, possibly to distinguish it from the passenger carrier service, which was called the ‘cross-border’, and the label has stuck to this day. The term is derived from the Ndebele word ukulayisha, which literally means ‘to transport’. In everyday usage, it has been used in different contexts to refer to different entities, including the channel of remittances, the operator(s), and the vehicle(s). However, the label needs to be understood within the broader operational framework of the channel – overloading, human smuggling, and always with some form of cargo.Footnote 3
Omalayisha draw their popularity from the speed of delivery, convenience and the ability to transport anything across the border (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). As pointed out in the SPT report (2009), the system operates entirely on trust, and while trust is earned through reliability, the majority of transport operators are members of the community they serve, and in such situations trust is derived from neighbourhood and friendship ties, kinship relations and good references (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). Unlike public passenger carriers, where service is open to the public, the system operates on an informal personal basis: every client has his/her preferred transporter and each transporter has his clients. I also heard that clients usually recommended transporters to friends and acquaintances, and a transporter earns a good reference through favourable pricing, reliability and trustworthiness. Transporters who use formal channels to smuggle migrants into South Africa were usually preferred to those who utilised informal entry points. One female migrant once told me, ‘uThwalumuntu, uhambisana phezulu, akangeni emanzini’ [this particular transporter was famous for using official channels, instead of informal entry points through the Limpopo River] (Doreen int.).Footnote 4 Critics often ignore the element of choice in the smuggling contract, particularly the fact that people smuggled into South Africa determine the channel of entry through the amount they pay. Thwalumuntu Mangena (int.) acknowledged the transporter's lack of power in the smuggling process: ‘Benefactors usually request that their people be moved through formal channels. They pay high fares for such a service, and demand constant appraisals from the transporter for the duration of the journey. It is our duty to protect people in our custody.’
This does not mean that the client–transporter relationship is devoid of conflicts. On the contrary, misunderstandings but especially a breakdown of trust resulting from unscrupulous behaviour on the part of transport operators, unfulfilled transactions and even unfortunate circumstances, commonly result in conflict. As noted earlier, omalayisha owe their popularity as a channel of remittances to their speed of delivery and convenience. But sometimes, goods fail to reach their destination on time (SPT 2009). While conflict may not ensue, if such situations were a consequence of the behaviour of the transporter, conflict would arise. As transporters admitted,
the outward journey is dependent on attainment of a full load. This has implications on the time of the delivery of goods.
(Mpungose int.)I usually collect goods from clients and hoard them at my flat, and then transport them in two or three trips.
(Nkonjeni int.)During busier periods, we only transport goods to a central point in either Bulawayo or Plumtree, and leave the distribution to third parties, while we rush back to Johannesburg for another trip. The use of third parties compromises the relationship. Goods disappear, and sometimes goods are delivered to wrong clients.
(Mathema int.)Either way, goods will not be delivered on time, leading to conflict. Conflicts also arise due to breaches of the verbal contract by either party. ‘Pre-paid’ and ‘pay forward’ arrangements emerged as a major source of conflict. Clients and their benefactors prefer and pay to be transported through formal channels of entry, but greedy transporters may opt to use informal entry points. Alternatively, the in-journey may go awry, leading to the arrest and deportation of people in the transporter's custody (Mangena int.). While clients and their benefactors view the emigration process as the sole responsibility of the transporter, some transporters wash their hands off deported cases and fail to refund the clients. The study showed that most ‘pay forward’ arrangements were between the would-be migrant and the transporter, with the benefactor only consulted after the process was underway. In most cases, the benefactors would not have ready cash to pay for transport, leading to a bitter conflict. But conflicts were minimised by certain factors governing the relationship – kinship relations, friendship ties and neighbourhood ties (Mathonsi int.). Not surprising therefore, conflicts were slighter in rural communities, where transporters were members of the community and of a wider kin system than in Bulawayo.
It is, however, difficult to generalise about remittances transported to Matabeleland during certain periods, and the sector most likely to receive particular goods. During the 1994/5, 1997/8 and 2001/2 harvest crises, for example, remittances to both the rural communities and Bulawayo comprised maize-meal, but there was also a higher prevalence of carrier bags to rural areas than to Bulawayo.Footnote 5 This was to change at the height of the economic crisis, and carrier bags became a common part of consignments to both sectors – a change attributed to shortage of commodities on the shop shelves. Along with carrier bags, the malayisha system also transported assets (beds, lounge suites, electric gadgets and refrigerators), building materials and money to rural and urban Matabeleland.
Initially, with every consignment destined for Zimbabwe, omalayisha also transported cash remittances, in both South African and Zimbabwean currencies, to beneficiary households. Financial remittances were sent for specific purposes – to pay school fees, for emergencies (medical fees and funerals), and to invest in livestock and building materials (see Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). But due to the high commission charged by transporters for moving money, migrants have since resorted to alternative means, albeit through the same channel. To circumvent the exorbitant costs of remitting cash, they stuff the money into rice or maize-meal, reseal the bags and pack them into carrier bags. In that way, they only pay for the carrier bags. Transport charges for goods are arbitrary and usually determined by weight, even though there are no standard methods of determining weight. But they are also negotiable.Footnote 6
The study showed that transporters were more likely to transport furniture to south-western rural districts of Matabeleland than Bulawayo during the late 1990s, but the trend changed after 2000. This was the case for two reasons. In addition to the ability of the system to move non-duty free goods across the border, the profile of migrants changed markedly, with the migration of people with families, professionals and women in the late 1990s and 2000s (Zinyama Reference Zinyama, Tevera and Zinyama2002). Price changes in Zimbabwe during the 2000s were also important: the country's economic crisis was defined by rising commodity prices – in 2003, inflation was estimated at 525% (Bush Reference Bush2003), went above the 1000% mark in March 2006, and rose 100.7% monthly to 3713.9% in April 2007 (Reuters 27.6.2007). After 2005, almost every cargo transported across the border to Zimbabwe included some household furniture – be it bulky goods or smaller electronic gadgets, stuffed in carrier bags.
Where illegal migrants had to respond to emergences, be it funerals or family illness, they tended to utilise the services of cross-border transporters, mainly for their ability to outwit the immigration system. Over and above, the malayisha system was instrumental in the movement of migrant passports to and from South Africa. Migrants would use passports into South Africa, process them out through the system at a fee, remain in the country as an undocumented labour force, and process the passports back into the country through the same system when the time for home travel came. Occasionally, omalayisha would repatriate corpses and the sick to both urban and rural communities. By the 2000s, they were transporting virtually anything across the border, and had extended their services to north-eastern districts, including the former Shangani Reserves (Lupane and Nkayi Districts) and the Zambezi escarpment. Unlike in other parts of Matabeleland, the service was not regular, only concentrated during peak periods (month-ends, Easter, Heroes and Christmas holidays). While the availability of the service opened opportunities for out-migration to South Africa, a regular cross-border service could not be sustained. First, unlike arid parts of Matabeleland, where droughts and crop failure are common, there is a thriving smallholder farming sector on the Zambezi escarpment. Secondly, the former Shangani Reserves have a semi-proletarian culture, including a culture of dual households (Thebe Reference Thebe2009). There was therefore little need for frequent remittances, whereas migrants from worker-peasant backgrounds often sent remittances to their urban homes.
As noted in the SPT Report (2009), the traffic of omalayisha along Zimbabwe's road network slowed down with the availability of commodities on the shop shelves. The study showed 38% of migrants stopped remitting groceries in December 2008, but continued to remit cash. Due to exorbitant prices charged by the malayisha system, cash remittances were often made through relatives and acquaintances. As noted by Maphosa (Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010), cross-border transporters charge an average of R20 per every R100 sent, and to migrants the commission charged was a great loss. In the words of one migrant, ‘the dollarisation of the economy made it difficult to remit substantial amounts, and the amount reduced further with the discharge of the 20% fee’ (Ncube int.).
But the remitting behaviour of migrants from rural south-western districts showed little sign of change, and the omalayisha traffic has not shown such a dramatic slowdown. The main reason given by migrants for continuing to send goods that are available in Zimbabwe was cost. Most rural communities are far from district towns and it is costly to travel to Bulawayo (see Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). On average, migrants remitted consumer goods three times a year. Moreover, omalayisha and older migrants have rural homes – they own herds of livestock and have employees, who have to be paid and fed. As Maphosa (Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010) observed, cross-border transportation is a lucrative business and some of the operators have become the nouveau riche.
TRANSITION IN CROSS-BORDER TRANSPORT
Until the mid 1990s, the malayisha system was in its infancy, and whatever was remitted across the border to Matabeleland was transported through passenger carriers or by personal vehicles. Migrants paid home visits during holidays but relatives also paid occasional visits to South Africa to buy wares for sale in Zimbabwe. Despite the volume of shoppers into South Africa, the transport of their wares did not necessitate a separate transport channel from the public cross-border passenger service. Even the 1991/2 drought did not generate the demand for cross-border transport as witnessed after the turn of the twentieth century.
Transition phases in cross-border cargo transportation
It is obviously important to explore the degree to which the evidence from transporters and migrants' accounts supports the caricature of omalayisha as malevolent, money-grabbers and a people-smuggling syndicate. Such an analytical path requires us to trace the birth and transition of the service, its mode of operation, the cargo transported, and the value of the service to the migrants. The birth and importance of the malayisha system was a gradual process that gained prominence towards the end of the twentieth century. The growth and prominence of the system also corresponded with the dramatic growth in Zimbabwean migration to South Africa, particularly the migration of professionals and ‘middle-aged family person’ (Zinyama Reference Zinyama, Tevera and Zinyama2002: 40). But this channel of remittances gained prominence at different times in different regions of Matabeleland and the country as a whole. Each phase in the transition of the system was characterised by different demands, mode of operation, relationships and cargo transported. While emerging evidence does not contradict the view of the system as a channel used by illegal migrants into South Africa, it reveals the transition, the importance and the indispensability that it has acquired over the years.
Part-time transportation
The transition of this channel went through three distinct phases: part-time transportation, full-time transportation, and smuggling of goods and people. These phases are identified through events rather than calendar months and years. During the formative phase, the malayisha system provided a part-time and irregular service, confined to people close to the transporter. Car owners engaged in transport activities on their home visits, on holidays or vacation (see Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). They used five-seater sedans or station wagons, which drew trailers and were convenient for transporting bulk goods like building materials. Compared with the public transport system, this system provided door-to-door convenience and was also reliable due to kinship and friendship ties, and neighbourhood.
Such activities were not a business but an occasional service, which car owners also extended to acquaintances. With time, they extended their services to others at a fee. But these operators were not strangers to the communities they served. They were sons, husbands, brothers and part of the wider kin. As one of the early transporters explains, ‘during a home visit, neighbours and kin would give you goods … for their families (bebephathisa).Footnote 7 It was something that we also encouraged our younger relatives to do’ (Mpofu int.).
The ‘scheduled home visits’ were significant for a number of reasons. For migrants, these visits were used to establish themselves in their villages by building houses and starting their own families. For households based in the villages, they were occasions for receipt of remittances, but also occasions when they could receive news of family members long lost in South Africa – imigewu or omadliwa (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). On their return to South Africa, migrants would talk about the situation back home, their achievements, and more importantly from the viewpoint of households and family members in the homeland, they would take with them desperate pleas from wives and parents long abandoned by some migrants. As one transporter put it, ‘some of our brothers had a tendency to disappear. We would tell them about the situation at home, to remind them of what they left behind and that their families needed them’ (Nkomo int.).
There is evidence to suggest that early transport operators became important in the livelihoods of households in their communities. They transported occasional remittances, which were important for investments. These investments would, at a later stage, influence future out-migration to South Africa. For many later migrants, early migrants and transporters were not only important as hosts, but provided guides on how to cross the border and sometimes drew on the support of known human smugglers, who assisted with the migration process. But early transporters agree that they did not partake in human smuggling: their cargo passed through the formal channels, and the flow of goods was often one-way, usually with no return cargo to South Africa.
Emergence of full-time transporters and human exporters
This service was to change due to perennial rain failure in Matabeleland and the economic restructuring in the country as a whole, ushering the second phase (1995–2000) in cross-border transport. As Bird and Shepherd (Reference Bird and Shepherd2003: 596) note, ESAP led to retrenchments from the public and private sectors, and the turnaround affected mainly worker-peasants' livelihoods, as ‘remittances declined and many retrenchees were forced to return to their ‘‘rural homes”’. But ESAP also coincided with the severe 1991/2 drought, and the subsequent period of rain failure and El Nino-induced floods towards the turn of the century.
There is evidence that this series of shocks exacerbated out-migration to South Africa, with over half the migrants arriving in South Africa between 1993 and 2000. Of these, 79% held jobs in Zimbabwe before coming to South Africa: seventeen in the industrial sector, thirteen in the civil service, nine in the police or armed forces, and five each in retail and private security. There were also seven who held professional qualifications, and worked as managers, accountants and teachers. Most (66%) of these had lost their jobs in Zimbabwe, while others felt they were pushed from their jobs by the system. Most migrants had dependents back home, and the loss of their jobs created a livelihood crisis for their households. Two-thirds had young families, and although they had relatives working in Zimbabwe and South Africa, they were solely responsible for the upkeep of their families. In the absence of state programmes to cushion citizens from the hardships, people were forced to seek alternative livelihoods outside the country.
It is not surprising that there was a surge in demand for the transport of goods after 1995: the new migrants came to South Africa with clear objectives to seek livelihood opportunities for themselves and their families back home. The crisis also put pressure on earlier migrants to intervene through the provision of food (maize-meal, sugar and wheat flour) and financial assistance (Mpofu int.). It was then that the malayisha system became commercialised, as part-timers became full-time transporters and more operators joined. A few of these pioneers are still involved in the industry, although some left the transport to hired drivers.
These operators inherited a lot from their predecessors, including the use of smaller cars and trailers. However, unlike passenger carriers, the malayisha system remained unregulated and without an umbrella association. The absence of a mother body meant that turnover was high. Any individual could transport goods as long as he had a vehicle, could hire a trailer and could find clients, and such an individual could stop anytime. The service became more regular as the volume of goods crossing the border increased, but transporters continued to serve their communities. In the words of another of my transporters,
the relationship with clients remained that of mutual trust rather than a business transaction. Due to the continuing food crisis in our communities, the relationship was not a one-off, but one that was continuous. In all households, granaries were empty, maize-meal was a scarce commodity on shop shelves, and government food assistance never reached the households. We were transporting bulky maize-meal, sugar and wheat flour packages. The demand was so high we made an average of eight outward trips in a month. As regular travellers, we knew the situation in our communities. Given the magnitude of the crisis, we sometimes transported goods on credit.
(Mangena int.)Due to the complexity of the kinship system in rural communities, the transporter, the clients and the households usually had a close relationship. It was in the context of these complex relationships that out-migration increased with the in-flow of goods. On their outward journey from Zimbabwe, transporters would assist kin into South Africa, and such assistance was also extended to relatives of colleagues in South Africa at a nominal fee. But such assistance was confined to kin and relatives of acquaintances, and at their request. Towards the turn of the millennium, there was increased demand for assistance into South Africa by relatives, and transporters were overwhelmed with requests for human exportation from clients and kin. But they emphasised that human smuggling was not their core activity. Furthermore, it was only in rare situations that they assisted total strangers, even at a fee. This point is highlighted by Knowledge Nleya's (int.) account. Nleya got frustrated in his attempt to find umalayisha to assist him into South Africa. ‘You would approach them … but they would refuse. The process is a complicated one. You need to be introduced to a particular transporter by someone close to him.’
A recent street theatre play by a Zimbabwean group, Omkula, reiterated the general reluctance by migrants to assist non-acquaintances. In the play, one of the characters complains:Footnote 8
Kanti indebele ngumunt’ onjani? … umunt’ uy’ eGoli, and in two months uza nge trans. Uma wen’ uthi, ‘mebras, akungisize nami, ngiwele’. Uzomuzwa eqala ethi, “Ziyabheda fanami! Isibhamu siqum’ emini nebusuku. Singcwaba zonk’ insuku”! Kodwa yen’ umuntu uyabuyela!’
What is the problem with Ndebele people? Someone goes to Johannesburg and comes back driving a flashy car. But if you ask to be assisted into South Africa, he will say, ‘Life in Johannesburg is not easy. People are shot and killed in cold blood. We bury our people every day!’ Yet, he will still go back!
But human smuggling on a larger scale also took place alongside assisted emigration, through syndicates outside the malayisha system, which were involved in the bulk movement of people into South Africa. Due to the large volumes of people they handled, they utilised the services of long-distance haulage trucks, either through Botswana or through Beitbridge border post. Although both men and women joined the ‘Great Trek’ to eGoli, the study revealed the use of different methods. Just over 18% (thirteen out of seventy-one) of cases involved smuggling syndicates, with 69% assisted by omalayisha, and the remainder passing through official channels. Changes in the character of the migrants also transformed household livelihoods. The migration of educated household members, family men and women, some of whom had left children in the care of their parents, led to regular remittances, which secured their households against starvation (Thebe Reference Thebe2009; Zinyama Reference Zinyama, Tevera and Zinyama2002). Contrary to findings by the SPT (2009), evidence shows that most migrants in this category kept contact with their homes, through either remittances or visits. All migrants, even those without travel documents, had visited their homes during the past three years, and remitted goods and money either monthly or occasionally. Grace Phiri, for example, left three children in the care of her unemployed mother after the death of her husband in 1999. She came to South Africa to work for her children, and made her first cross-border transaction two months after her arrival in South Africa. Like many other migrants, she lives and works in the country illegally, and relies on the services of omalayisha for her journeys home, for the transport of goods, and for visits from her children during school vacations.
Smuggling of goods and humans
The year 2000 and the aftermath of the elections were significant in the transition of the malayisha system. The system as a channel of remittances became more important as the country's economy went into meltdown and the region became entirely reliant on the South African and Botswana economies. The economic context informed what was remitted across the border to Matabeleland and the return cargo into South Africa. While the in-flows, to either Bulawayo or rural Matabeleland, included food, luxury goods and building materials, out-flows comprised humans. In fact, the divide between goods and passenger carriers became blurred as the system was overwhelmed by demand, and human smuggling became a core business for both transport systems.
This new wave of migration into South Africa covered the whole of Zimbabwe, but in Matabeleland in particular, migration was made easier by social networks (Sibanda Reference Sibanda2010; Thebe Reference Thebe2009). Migrants were expatriating their immediate families into South Africa en masse, and omalayisha would openly solicit customers on their return trips from Zimbabwe. The study showed that migrants knew at least a relative, a neighbour or a friend working in South Africa, and willing to finance the migration process. While solicitation has received a lot of coverage from the media, the role of early migrants in financing the movement of kin into South Africa remains ignored. As one migrant noted, the role of the transporter was to deliver migrants to their relatives on either a ‘pre-paid’ or ‘pay forward’ arrangement (Mabhena int.). For ‘pre-paid’ cases, payment and travel arrangements were settled before the outward journey to Zimbabwe, while for ‘pay forward’ arrangements, financial settlement was made on delivery of the human ‘cargo’.
While discussion of Zimbabwean migration has concentrated on the use of illegal entry points, the smuggling of people through official channels has received little attention. Migrants smuggled by omalayisha moved through two channels, depending on the fee paid, number of migrants to be smuggled, and the transporter's willingness and ability to pay. One transporter said: ‘In ordinary circumstances, we move pre-paid cases, returning migrants and people willing to pay higher fares through the formal channels. We do not like using unofficial channels because they are dangerous and they delay the journey’ (Nkosi int.). I was told that for access to the formal channels, omalayisha maintained a network of relationships with border officials. These officials were either bribed directly based on the number of migrants to be smuggled, or received irregular amounts during every encounter – purportedly for a ‘cool drink’.Footnote 9 Transporters often refer to the process as ‘pre-arranged access routes’. I will illustrate this process through the accounts of two migrants:
Account 1: Manjobo Ncube (int.)
Ncube was picked from Bulawayo by his transporter (a relative through marriage) on a Saturday in August 2004. Since he was not a paying passenger, he gave his transporter R200 for access routes. After a five-hour delay in Beitbridge Town, where his transporter consulted with other transporters on the in-journey, and made countless calls to South Africa, he and four others finally crossed the South African border in the early morning hours. Although he and his fellow passengers did not have any travel documents, they went through border processes with ease and without checking-in.
Account 2: Felicity Nhliziyo (int.)
Felicity held a valid Zimbabwean passport but visa processes for South Africa were cumbersome, and like many before and after her, she used the malayisha system. All the arrangements, including payment for the journey, were made in Johannesburg. She was collected from her home and driven to her husband's place in Johannesburg's Berea suburb, without encountering any problems at the border post. She presumes that the transporter bribed his way through, as he did at a police check-point on the N1 motorway.
However, not all transporters utilised pre-arranged access routes. In some cases, people were smuggled through unofficial entry points, and in such cases, omalayisha engaged the services of expert facilitators (izimpisi), to guide people across Limpopo River and the electric fence into South Africa, and along the Musina stretch of forest. This was by far the most arduous and dangerous method, and according to transporters, the most hated. The challenges are well documented: encounters with nature – in the form of the raging Limpopo River water and the predatory crocodiles – and human obstacles including South African patrols and gangsters known as amagumaguma.
During the post-2000 period, transporters changed their fleets and acquired carriers that could accommodate both goods and passengers.Footnote 10 The goods transported to and from Zimbabwe and the frequency of the trips necessitated the change. Omalayisha were transporting items that were once basic in the country plus luxury products, which usually attracted import duty in Zimbabwe. When they recount what goods they transported into Zimbabwe, it is clear that as well as feeding and clothing their families from the South African economy, migrants were creating places of comfort for themselves and relatives: consumables, electric gadgets, solar panels, building materials, bedroom and lounge suites, etc. Given the cargo transported across and the relationships created with border officials, even the processing of outbound cargo became surreptitious. The carrier service would ship anything across the border at a price and on a regular basis, and even though shop shelves remained empty, some migrant families could still afford three decent meals a day. As noted by Maphosa (Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010) and Thebe (Reference Thebe2009), through omalayisha, migrant households in rural Matabeleland also invested in both essential and luxury assets, and became a major source of rural employment. Through the remittances from South Africa, rural communities became increasingly stratified. Migrant households came to occupy a new stratum, replacing the traditional rural upper class of teachers and urban workers (Thebe Reference Thebe2009). The study showed that over half the rural migrants invested in their rural homes: they built modern brick houses, powered with solar energy, and furnished with refrigerators and other electronic gadgets. Some connected their homes with running water from boreholes, drilled within the compound.
REPATRIATING THE DEAD AND THE SICK
With increased migration to South Africa, omalayisha were soon to acquire an even greater role as agents in the movement of the dead and sick, even to remote communities of the province. I heard how the crime wave in Johannesburg and the HIV/AIDS epidemic claimed many migrants' lives, thereby presenting the migrant community with problems of repatriation of the dead. The conventional methods for moving the dead back to Zimbabwe were either expensive or inconvenient. Cross-border undertakers charged exorbitant prices to rural Matabeleland, and air transport could take corpses no further than Bulawayo. Such a mode also remained unpopular with migrants, mainly because they violated cultural beliefs. As a sign of respect to the departed, migrants preferred to accompany the body to its resting place, and perform certain rituals during the journey. People with their own cars would hire a trailer and repatriate the remains of their own relatives, but such a mode did not cater for the number of mourners going for the funeral.
It was against this background that omalayisha got involved in repatriating corpses. The introduction of mini-buses and strong double cab trucks, suited even for the roughest terrain, made them not only the most convenient but also cheapest option. These could accommodate the funeral entourage without the bereaved incurring additional costs. Transporters recounted the numerous times they repatriated corpses – sometimes relatives and neighbours – to be laid to rest where they have families. Almost every transporter had at one time assisted in the repatriation of a corpse to some part of Matabeleland. The door-to-door convenience also made omalayisha popular for the repatriation of sick migrants. The common practice among Ndebele migrants was to call umalayisha to repatriate them and their belongings when their health began to deteriorate. This meant that migrants avoided the cumbersome process of clearing a dead migrant for repatriation. Such a service was made possible through the long transporter/client relationship. Transporters saw the role as inherent in the relationship:
Due to the nature of our service and the relationships that we establish with our clients, people believe in us …
(Ndlovu int.)In the majority of cases, the public passenger transport service would have rejected them. But we transport them in spite of their condition.
(Dube int.)Some of these people will be virtually dead, and some of them have died on the way. I remember one incident in 2007, when she died before I arrived at her home.
(Mbambo int.)If exorbitant charging, occasional conflicts and people-smuggling activities were central factors that defined transport operators to their critics, this was certainly not so for remitting migrants and households benefiting from those activities. As other studies have shown, the current malayisha system made remitting easy (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010; SPT 2009), and their same-day or overnight service bridged the geographical gap between Matabeleland and Johannesburg. Where households' food security was precarious due to low harvests and empty shop shelves, omalayisha generated a constant supply of consumer goods to beneficiary households, and came to occupy a central role in the region's economic system. Some people also linked omalayisha to the parallel economy and development structures, which emerged in some rural communities of Matabeleland after 2005.
In addition to supplying consumer goods, they also doubled as foreign currency dealers, a process that flooded rural communities with foreign currency (Maphosa Reference Maphosa, Crush and Tevera2010). One migrant reflected: ‘By 2005, the [Zimbabwe] dollar had become an inferior commodity. The rand was used in all transactions including the payment of lobola. This was long before the country adopted the multi-currency system’ (Dube int.).
At the time this research began, Zimbabwe's economic downturn had reached alarming proportions and the flow of migrants across the Limpopo River was increasing. Certainly, human smuggling had become a major activity within the malayisha system, and consequently, the system got tainted. But it was not just human smuggling that defined the malayisha system, even at the time. Even in human smuggling, there were good intentions and livelihood implications, and it is certainly true that the system became an escape route from unemployment, misery and poverty for the smuggled. In an environment characterised by perennial harvest crises and a destruction of urban-based livelihoods due to ESAP, the system became instrumental in households' quest to reconstruct their livelihoods. This is not to exonerate the system for illegally moving people into South Africa. Yet data revealed that the contract between the transporter and the smuggled was free of coercion: the smuggled were often pushed by extreme difficulties in the conditions for the reproduction of labour in Zimbabwe, and the need for their survival and that of their dependents back home (Rutherford & Addison Reference Rutherford and Addison2007: 632).
The significance of the system became vividly apparent during times of crises, both natural and economic. Transporters moved cash, people – in health, ill-health or as corpses – consumer and material goods to Zimbabwe, and migrants to South Africa, a process that led to significant improvements in household food security and standards of living. With increased migration and increasing demand for remittances, omalayisha bridged the time and geographical gap between Matabeleland and Johannesburg – the new livelihood centre for Ndebele households. This has led to omalayisha being highly sought-after, by those trying to escape poverty in Zimbabwe and those supplying the much needed remittances from South Africa.
Even as the country's economy was recovering after the adoption of the multi-currency in 2009, omalayisha were still visible on Matabeleland roads. Zimbabwe's dollarisation project attained its second anniversary in February 2011, coinciding with South Africa's new legislation on Zimbabwean migrants and migration. What effects these changes will have on future omalayisha roles in rural communities with a high prevalence of cross-border migration is still unknown. These processes warrant detailed research, but what is evident is that the traffic of omalayisha across the Beitbridge border post has thinned down in the recent past – a situation attributed to reduced remittance flows to urban centres, including Bulawayo (SPT 2009). But if the new developments blur people's memories, certainly the words at the back of one cross-border goods carrier will remain ingrained in people's minds – ‘From South Africa, with love’, they read.
