Informal Negotiation of the Zimbabwe–Mozambique Border for Survival by Mutare’s Marginalized People

Abstract

This study investigates, through electronic and print media sources, published books and articles, reports from international organizations, and oral interviews, the irregular ways through which many vulnerable people in Zimbabwe’s eastern border city of Mutare exploited opportunities in neighbouring Mozambique for survival. Most people had to resort to clandestine cross-border activities largely because they could not afford the financial obligations for travel documents, visa fees, border taxes, work permits, as well as import and trade licences. In addition, several of the commodities they imported or exported were either subject to duty, or altogether illegal either in Mozambique or Zimbabwe.

The “logic” of Renamo civil war violence: Trans-border communities and Renamo incursions in Eastern Zimbabwe, 1980s-1992.

“…58 It also became a familiar terrain for both Zimbabwean and Mozambican traffickers of alcohol and dangerous drugs, hence as early as 1905, colonial officials were lamenting the effects of smuggling of illicit brew (nipa) from Mozambican villages for resale and consumption in Rhodesia. 59 Similarly, dagga trade was also rampant across the border throughout the colonial period. 60 In the 1980s, Renamo tapped into these networks to establish crossborder supplies of contraband.…”

“…59 Similarly, dagga trade was also rampant across the border throughout the colonial period. 60 In the 1980s, Renamo tapped into these networks to establish crossborder supplies of contraband. Although, the link between armed conflict and the production and trafficking of illicit drugs has been noted in the literature, 61 for Renamo the specific dynamics of this linkage remain poorly understood.…”

“…Indeed, during the 1980s and early 1990s, thousands of displaced Mozambicans who did not enter refugee camps flooded Zimbabwean rural villages, the border towns of Nyanga, Mutare, Chimanimani and Chipinge and farming and mining areas in the eastern province of Manicaland where most of them were employed in various informal capacities. 109 As Englund has argued for Mozambican refugees on the Mozambican-Malawian borderlands, civil war refugees in Honde Valley came into "exile as persons enmeshed in relationships, and the processes by which they experienced their displacement were indeterminate because of the myriad relationships which they carried with them". 110 Although Mozambicans fleeing the civil war exploited trans-border relationships to settle in Honde Valley, communities in which they were settled in were ill-equipped to distinguish genuine refugees from the infamous Renamo punitive expeditions.…”

Exploration of transnationalism as a concept and phenomenon in Public Administration

“…The situation in Zimbabwe has somehow contributed in the distortion of the actual meaning and manifestation of the phenomenon of transnationalism. Due to sociopolitical conditions in that country, desperate highly skilled workers are forced to leave Zimbabwe for South Africa, searching for economic opportunities and benefits (Gaidzanwa, 1999;Solomon, 2003;Muzvidziwa, 2005;Duri, 2010). In the process, some skilled workers open themselves to abuse and poor living conditions, arranged by shady "organisers" for social and economic exploitation, while other skilled workers receive better working contracts and conditions.…”