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POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: In the Midst of Restoring Order – Chaos

Tafi Murinzi

BULAWAYO, Jun 3 2005 (IPS) - Government calls the operation “Murambatsvina”, a Shona word meaning “to drive out rubbish”. But, on the city streets where the campaign has been carried out, people describe it as Zimbabwe’s own “tsunami”: a razing of informal settlements and markets that has left thousands homeless, and jobless.

Government calls the operation “Murambatsvina”, a Shona word meaning “to drive out rubbish”. But, on the city streets where the campaign has been carried out, people describe it as Zimbabwe’s own “tsunami”: a razing of informal settlements and markets that has left thousands homeless, and jobless.

Since May 25, authorities have bulldozed and burnt hundreds of illegally-built homes and stalls. This was ostensibly to rid cities of unauthorised buildings and cut down on the black market trade which government blames for the scarcity of fuel and other goods. Over 22,000 people have been arrested, and vast amounts of property confiscated in the course of Murambatsvina.

The leading opposition party, however, is having none of it.

“This is an indiscriminate abuse or assault on the people’s basic survival,” observed Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which says the operation smacks of a campaign against party supporters, most of whom are concentrated in urban areas.

Activist Felix Mafa believes the crackdown is also aimed at providing cheap labour for a newly settled pool of black farmers who were awarded land confiscated from minority whites after a series of farm occupations that began in 2000.

Initially, the seizures were portrayed as a gesture of frustration by veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s war of independence and other militants, who were impatient at the slow pace of land reform in the country. Although Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980, most of the country’s prime agricultural land was still in white hands two decades later.

However, government critics have since claimed that the farm occupations formed part of a plan to distract voters from the administration’s failing economic policies in the run-up to parliamentary elections in 2000, (several properties have allegedly been given to ruling party members and allies). The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front’s victory in the 2000 poll was disputed by the MDC – as was its triumph in the latest parliamentary election, held in March.

Murambatsvina, also referred to as “Operation Restore Order”, got underway in the capital, Harare, but has since included Zimbabwe’s second-largest city of Bulawayo in the south, the northern resort town of Victoria Falls, and Beitbridge on the border with South Africa.

Traders, some tearful, could only look on as police swung into action Tuesday in Bulawayo, moving from site to site collecting roof material from stalls before setting it alight.

At the city’s oldest market, plumes of thick, black smoke filled the air. Near the main bus station, a fire started by police threatened to get out of hand, forcing them to request help from the fire brigade.

Metal frames eventually served as the only reminder of where traders’ stalls had once stood. But even these were carted away later by the police, who also swooped down on Bulawayo’s “World Bank”: a flea market named for its under-the-counter foreign currency transactions.

The foreign exchange available in Zimbabwe has dwindled over the past five years as the national currency has depreciated, and inflation soared.

Mile-long fuel queues have become a permanent sight, making travel a difficult and time-consuming exercise for both motorists and commuters, (some 500 supposedly defective minibus taxis were also impounded and fined during Murambatsvina).

Certain analysts say the economic malaise is linked to a decline in the agriculture sector brought about by farm occupations, and Zimbabwe’s costly involvement in the Congolese civil war – amongst other factors.

President Robert Mugabe lays the blame on Western powers – which he accuses of planning to topple him – and prolonged drought.

For traders like Sheila, a mother of five whose husband is unemployed, the notion of plots in London and Washington may have seemed remote during the past few days – and about as hard to swallow as the government’s claims that it was ridding Zimbabwean towns of a criminal element. This is because Sheila is a fully licensed trader – whose stall was nonetheless destroyed.

“We had our licences in our hands but we didn’t get the opportunity to show them because they didn’t ask us,” she says of the gun-toting, baton-wielding police officers.

Bulawayo’s mayor and opposition-run council have expressed outrage at the operation, which comes just as winter in the Southern hemisphere is beginning in earnest. They say that at least 450 of the destroyed stands were registered.

“It’s very devastating,” noted councillor Matson Hlalo. “You ask yourself where is the human face? Where is humanity?”

Added another councillor, Amon Mpofu: “Now they are destroying the informal sector just like they destroyed agriculture.”

“Only somebody who’s mad can do what we saw today.”

With unemployment put at about 80 percent, many people have been obliged to earn their living though informal trade, and the government’s assault on this sector has left them dumbfounded.

Up to a third of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people are also said to be in need of food aid.

On Wednesday, the director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), James Morris, held talks with Mugabe about the country’s food crisis. The agency estimates that maize production in Zimbabwe this year will amount to less than a third of the country’s needs.

Last year, the Zimbabwean leader rejected offers of food aid, claiming the country could feed itself – this as rights activists and opposition supporters alleged that scarce maize supplies were being used to force people to vote for the ruling party in the March poll.

But, while Mugabe told Morris Wednesday that he would welcome food assistance, statements by Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche the following day indicated that government was far from resigned to admitting its errors in the matter of food supply. Speaking on state radio, Goche denied that Zimbabwe had any need of emergency assistance.

Certain opposition activists speculate that Murambatsvina was aimed at diverting attention from food shortages and the other ills that beset Zimbabwe, while others see it as a bid to gauge just how angry people are about such matters.

“It is a pre-emptive strategy where they are testing the power of the people against talk of mass action that has been smouldering for quite some time,” says Mafa.

MDC economic advisor Eddie Cross has a similar theory.

“Mugabe,” he says, “is goading the population to revolt. Then he can declare a state of emergency and remove what is left of our civil liberties and rights."