stereotype created by the colonial state, persisted after independence in 1980,24 with implications for the lives of the workers and their descendants. 4.2 “ALIENS” DEPRIVED OF NATIONALITY Zimbabwe’s Constitution allowed for dual citizenship following independence in 1980. The 1979 Constitution acknowledged the migrant population from SADC countries by allowing citizenship by birth to children whose parents were either citizens, ordinary residents or became permanent residents after their birth. The right to dual citizenship was removed from the Constitution in 1983, 25 just before the enactment of the Citizenship Act in 1984 when the government abolished dual citizenship and asked Zimbabwean nationals to renounce any foreign citizenship by the end of 1985.26 Despite this, migrant workers were granted special dispensation allowing them to vote in 1990, 1995 and 2005. As mentioned above, Section 9(6) of the Citizenship Act (1984) states that any person who acquired citizenship by registration in 1985, and was on the voters’ roll in that year, was deemed to have retained Zimbabwean citizenship despite not renouncing their foreign citizenship. By 2000, then-President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party faced significant political opposition.27 With a crucial presidential election coming up in 2002,28 identity was politicized along the contours of ancestry, citizenship, belonging and the nation-state.29 The government became increasingly intolerant and began targeting commercial farmers mainly believed to be supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The land reform programme was rolled out which saw white-owned farms expropriated30 and farm workers, many of them migrants, dispersed. Many moved to peri-urban communities such as Epworth, Goromonzi and Hatcliffe near the capital, Harare, and Penhalonga, near Mutare. The immigrant population, especially those whose parents and ancestors had migrated to Zimbabwe in search of employment from neighbouring countries and who were perceived to be largely pro-opposition MDC supporters, became a target as the country prepared for both the 2000 parliamentary election and the crucial 2002 presidential election. Authorities disparagingly referred to the migrant population as “totemless aliens” and sought to deliberately exclude them from voting via citizenship legislation. The ZANU-PF government responded by tightening rules against dual citizenship through the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2001. 31 This amendment to the Citizenship Act of Zimbabwe required any person of foreign nationality to renounce that nationality within six months. Those who failed to do so lost their Zimbabwean citizenship, reducing many migrants and their descendants to non-citizens and rendering them effectively stateless. Many believe this political act was targeted at the white minority who were perceived to support the opposition.32 In reality, it affected hundreds of thousands of descendants of migrant workers and their families. The vast majority of the so-called “totemless” people had no claim to citizenship in any other country. For example, migrants from Malawi could not renounce their natural citizenship since by that time they had lost their Malawian nationality through operation of that country’s citizenship law. This provided that any person who left Malawi for another country automatically lost Malawian citizenship upon reaching the age of 21. 33 24 R. Parry, ‘Culture, Organization and Class: The African Experience in Salisbury: 1892-1935’, in Raftopoulos and T. Yoshikuni, (eds), Sites of Struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe’s Urban History, Harare: Weaver Press, 1999, pp. 66- 77. 25 Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Act No 3 of 1983 26 https://www.statelessness.eu/blog/denationalisation-and-politics-citizenship-zimbabwe; Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act, No 23 of 1984 Section 9 27 Katinka Ridderbos, Stateless former farm workers in Zimbabwe, https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/statelessness/ridderbos.pdf 28 Ibid 29 Anusa Daimon ‘Mabhurandaya’: The Malawian Diaspora in Zimbabwe: 1895 to 2008, Doctoral thesis in the faculty of humanities at the for Central African Studies at the University of Free State. 30 The Zimbabwe land reform programme has been widely documented. It led to around 4,500 white commercial farmers being dispossessed of their farms and over 300,000 farmworkers losing their jobs. https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/fast-track-land-reformzimbabwe/ accessed 18 September 2019. 31 Zimbabwe Country Assessment, October 2002, Country Information and Policy Unit, Immigration and Nationality Directorate Home Office, United Kingdom, https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3df4aaf46.pdf, 47 32 Ibid, 47 33 See section 7 of the Malawi Citizenship Act which has been amended but is yet to be implemented. WE ARE LIKE “STRAY ANIMALS” THOUSANDS LIVING ON THE MARGINS DUE TO STATELESSNESS IN ZIMBABWE Amnesty International 13