HEIDI HOLLAND

The misery of Mugabe's victims is a cash cow for corrupt officials, adding fuel to the fires of xenophobia in this country.

Loud warnings of an imminent xenophobia outbreak in Johannesburg's densely-populated Alexandra township propel this dangerous pathology to the fore once again. Although rife throughout the country in what often appear to be spontaneous flare-ups towards "otherness", violent retaliation is on this occasion overtly threatened in flyers that have been delivered door-to-door to selected individuals, mainly Zimbabweans, who live in RDP houses. They and other foreigners occupying the houses in question are reportedly "terribly frightened", and with good reason.

While some of the targeted residents of Alex will have gone through legal processes to obtain the passports and IDs that entitle them to housing, healthcare, schooling and social grants, others have bought their documentation from corrupt Home Affairs officials in order to enjoy these benefits at SA taxpayers' expense. The communities in which the migrants live know from their language and other characteristics that they were not born in South Africa, and that fake papers abound. So, alarmingly, many migrants are deeply resented whether legitimately documented or not.

Politically, in a time of dwindling resources, South Africans believe that the ANC owes them something, not least the opportunity to obtain benefits ahead of foreigners. With service delivery increasingly judged a failure by locals, intolerance is soaring.

It is a dangerous situation, which I discussed with an expert in the field, Leon Isaacson, the MD of Global Migration SA. He observes the scourges of bribery and extortion from every angle while going about his business on behalf of clients who achieve valid work and study permits.

"Because of the large numbers of Zimbabweans and other foreign nationals who have entered the country through non-legal ports of entry, such as by jumping border fences, people have arrived completely undocumented," he explains. "Many have been politically outspoken in Zimbabwe and are entitled to come in under refugee legislation to seek asylum, which in terms of UN protocols is supposed to be assessed here within 30 days. If their claims are deemed valid, those cases are regarded internationally as victims of distress and should be protected by the host country by being given refugee status in the form of a permit. However, in an overwhelming number of cases, the Home Affairs offices to which they report do not have the capacity to issue them with papers, so they remain undocumented. The state's incapacity has thereby created the environment for the corruption that is endemic in some sectors of Home Affairs.

"Furthermore," says Isaacson, "what is scary today is Home Affairs' detention and repatriation of asylum seekers in contravention of international law."

Estimates of the number of Zimbabwean and other legal and illegal migrants range from 3-5 million, yet Home Affairs has managed to process only around 400 000 of them during the past five years, according to Isaacson. Nevertheless, many civil servants are running parallel and lucrative businesses by taking a few hundred rands from large numbers of people, with no guarantee of documentation.

"What I saw when I was up at Beit Bridge recently were sections of the fence just cut open. Eventually it will be mended; then opened somewhere else. Thousands of people are walking into South Africa facilitated by officials who are meant to be guarding the border: they have to be absent for the Zimbabweans to get through. Once in our cities, the undocumented individual must bribe many others, including a security guard outside Home Affairs offices because he is linked to an official inside, to whom more must be paid for what is meant to be a free service. Very few migrants other than those with money – which is not many because they're usually very poor – obtain permits.

"Home Affairs is printing fake passports and IDs. For a bribe, you can get a fake birth certificate which entitles you to these documents. If you have money, you simply buy illegal citizenship. That means you can open a bank account and live and work exactly as a South African. We've had a few cases of people being found out, which has left the banks in a pickle because they've granted these individuals credit and home loans. The problem was so extensive a few years back that Home Affairs had to conduct a major exercise involving nearly a million people, to match up their fake IDs and passports against the birth register. It was briefly cleaned up, but now it's too far gone to sort out."

The government is well aware of the extent of the problem, says Isaacson. "They know it is out of control because they are not getting isolated complaints but dire warnings from their own departments, like housing, of wholesale fraud in townships where the community knows exactly who is South African and who is not."

Strangely, the violent practice of xenophobia in South Africa does not victimize foreigners uniformly. Black migrants, particularly those from Africa and especially Zimbabweans (the most numerous) comprise the majority of victims. Why, how and whom xenophobia targets remains a mysterious phenomenon psychologically.

South Africa's transition to democracy has highlighted the country's unequal distribution of wealth. Feelings of discontent and indignation - based on the belief that citizens are getting less than they are entitled to – are now soaring. It is the ideal situation for xenophobia to take root and flourish.

Frustration, meanwhile, breeds anger. Although not all societies translate anger into violence, this one certainly does.

Overall, two things become damningly obvious when you examine xenophobia. The first is that corrupt officials are fuelling it.

The second is that, far from South Africa's self-image of sophistication and development on the African continent, as Issacson points out: "When you look at xenophobia, you see our most basic survival instincts saying, 'I can pick up a brick and kill you, or set you on fire'. That's how brutal we are when it comes down, deep down, to the protection of our own interests."