Lesotho: Call to Scrap Passports Between Lesotho and SA

Lesotho’s opposition Basotho Action Party has launched a campaign to ease cross-border travel using national identity cards

• A Lesotho opposition party, Basotho Action Party, has launched a campaign urging the government to abolish the use of passports between Lesotho and South Africa.
• Party leader Nqosa Mahao is calling for citizens to be allowed to use national ID cards for cross-border movement and for residency purposes.
• Lesotho home affairs minister says both countries’ governments are already developing a new migration model to ease restrictions on travel, residency and employment.

Lesotho opposition party Basotho Action Party (BAP) has launched a campaign urging the government to abolish the use of passports between Lesotho and South Africa. BAP says citizens of both countries should be able to travel freely using their national identity cards. The party is petitioning the government to enter immediate negotiations with Pretoria to ease cross-border movement, employment and residency restrictions.

Launching its petition in Maseru last week, BAP leader Nqosa Mahao said that since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, Lesotho has failed to strengthen relations with its powerful neighbour in ways that meaningfully benefit its citizens.

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“Only piecemeal arrangements, such as six-month visitor visas and special permits, have been put in place,” Mahao said. “Those things do not address the plight of thousands of Basotho who live and work in South Africa.”

The BAP petition calls for citizens of both countries to use national ID cards instead of passports; to be able to work, study, and access healthcare freely; and to participate in local elections wherever they reside.

The proposal, Mahao said, would not compromise the sovereignty of either country.

Mahao, a former vice-chancellor of the National University of Lesotho, said the demand is grounded in the shared history between the two countries, especially Lesotho’s role in South Africa’s liberation.

Mahao recalled the 1982 Maseru Massacre, when apartheid South African troops raided Lesotho’s capital, killing South African exiles and Basotho civilians.

“We didn’t build refugee camps as the apartheid regime wanted, because that would have made it easy for their raids to target them [South African exiles]. They lived among us, as family,” he said.

“We studied together at the university … They were never asked to produce special documents to live or study in Lesotho. In fact, the National University of Lesotho reserved 23% of its annual intake for students from across Africa.”

Mahao said their petition aims to revive this spirit.

“We are calling on Basotho to sign and support this campaign so that our government can negotiate permanent solutions with South Africa. When we have collected enough signatures, we will present the petition formally to the government.”

By Wednesday night, 366 people had signed the petition.

Minister of Home Affairs Lebona Lephema said both governments are already developing a new migration model.

“The [new] model will cover all migrant workers, domestic, farm and factory workers, to ensure they receive employment letters and full benefits such as minimum wage entitlement and severance pay,” Lephema said.

He said the two countries, with support from the International Organisation for Migration, completed a joint study of the New Pan-African Migration Model last month, aimed at easing trade and travel between Lesotho and South Africa.