I just wanted to point out that, in support of this notion that it was the people of South Africa who passed this Constitution and who established the boundaries for our new country of South Africa, the Bill of Rights says everyone has the right to leave South Africa, but it says, "Every citizen has the right to enter South Africa". This is a very, very important part of our Constitution that I think we very often tend to forget. As citizens, only we enjoy the right ... [Interjections.] ... to enter our country legally. Everybody else has to do so by invitation of a visa.
At the time we were in Ekurhuleni, I raised very sharply the issue of the Border Management Authority Bill. I don't want to go back to that, but it will also be a mistake to think that our borders are completely insecure. Last year alone one of the companies on the border between South Africa and Mozambique apprehended about 6 462 attempted illegal entrants, and this was because people were apprehended by the SA Defence Force there. Hijacked vehicles worth R28 million smuggled from South Africa into Mozambique were seized.
I want to remind those who think that illegal migration into our country is benign that, and I'll quote Major Manganye who operates near the Lebombo border post, who reports about the smuggling of rhino horn and wildlife products. He reports about illicit cigarettes and contraband, all of which damage our economy; illicit products and drugs that harm our children; 344 rhino carcasses and 65 elephant carcasses that were discovered in the Kruger National Park last year; 406 suspected poachers that were arrested; and 156 dangerous weapons that were confiscated, including homemade gun silencers. Should these weapons have gotten into our country we can only imagine what they could've been used for.
The thing that I do want to agree with though is that border management is not going to be the only solution to the issue of illegal migration into our country. I do think that one of our tasks as government in our international relations and in our trade dealings internationally, etc is to look at the development of our neighbouring countries, particularly in the Southern African Development Community, SADC, and across the continent. We have to start somewhere, and I wonder if we don't give sufficient consideration to the issue of security on our continent.
Today I was very, very heartened to hear that the UN together with the AU has resolved that the guns in Africa will be silenced. I think this is something that we as Africans must support and get behind because a lot of migration into our country is about insecurity.
The other issue ... I was very interested ... I bought this book called Oliver Tambo's Dream at the East London Airport this morning, and one of the things I read was that in one day Oliver Tambo flew from the one party state of Zambia to the people's Republic of Mozambique. He was then driven up to the monarchy of Swaziland before flying to the military ruled Lesotho. And I'm wondering, if Comrade president O R Tambo was alive today and was travelling through Africa, how many different types of states would he be flying through? Would we still see military rule on the continent? Would we still see monarchies on the continent? I think our response is, yes, we would. I think this is the kind of thing that we as Africans need to start talking about more and more. How do we bring freedom and economic prosperity to all the peoples of this wonderful continent? It is only when all of the countries on the African continent are as free as we are here in South Africa; are as free as our children are in South Africa; are able to speak to a Bill of Rights; are able to speak to a constitution; and are able to have
faith and trust in their institutions of democracy, that we can really say that we are all prospering together. [Applause.]