Zimbabwe: When a Dictator Is As Devastating As a Tsunami

southern africa | repression / prisoners | feature

Thursday June 30, 2005 22:30

by Bukharin - via ZACF

My personal testimony of "Operation Murambatsvina" [Sweep out the Trash]

The country is reeling under a massive economic crisis resulting from failed IMF/ World Bank neo-liberal economic policies that the government adopted under the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) of 1990. Unemployment is widespread, now estimated at 80%. The formal sector continues to shrink with companies folding down everyday resulting in massive job loses.

When a Dictator Is As Devastating As a Tsunami:
- By "Bukharin" in Zimbabwe

What Cleaning Up Can A Dirty Broom Do?

My personal testimony

Everyday the people of Zimbabwe pray that some miracle will save the country from degenerating into the curse of Malawi under Kamuzu Banda; Harsh brutal rule under a ruthless, insensitive, self-enriching dictator who lacked even the decency to die on time. Conversations are dominated by the talk of the Tsunami in reference of the devastation on ordinary peopleís lives caused by the government's so called "Operation Murambatsvina" [Sweep out the Trash] which is nothing but a senseless and callous attack on poor people of the townships. The government's so called "clean up" campaign has left over a million people displaced making them refugees in their own country. 300 000 kids have dropped out of school as a result of the displacements. Over 22 000 poor people trying to survive on informal trading have been arrested by the police with their goods worth millions of dollars confiscated or destroyed.

The ongoing senseless attacks on informal traders come at a time when the vast majority of the population has no choice but to survive on the informal sector. The country is reeling under a massive economic crisis resulting from failed IMF/ World Bank neo-liberal economic policies that the government adopted under the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) of 1990. Unemployment is widespread, now estimated at 80%. The formal sector continues to shrink with companies folding down everyday resulting in massive job loses. The whole social service delivery system is in a colossal crisis with the public housing, health and education sectors in total paralysis.

In the townships it certainly appears as if a tsunami has hit. In the over three-decades-old township of Mabvuku, I witnessed the havoc. First came riot police in defender trucks singing and drumming as if they were psyching for war with some alien invaders. The next day the cops came in their hundreds and drove around the township with sirens blurring and all their tools of violence displayed. As they drove around they gave instructions that residents destroy all informal structures. If they came round and you had not destroyed your own cottages and tuck shops you will get it. They would beat you up for resisting and ask you to start demolishing while they wait. In some cases they would just round up people in the vicinity and force them to take down the structures. Tuck shops, cottages, market stalls they were all going up in dust and smoke. And with that the source of livelihoods for thousands of people.

When the dust had settled the scene looked more like a funeral than anything I have seen before. The atmosphere was weighty and grave, without the normal wailing and singing that accompanies funerals. Shock. Stunned Silence. Disbelief. Trauma. Arms folded, people stood looking at the rubble that once had been their dwellings and few worldly belongings as they tried to comprehend what would drive a government to turn against its people with such violence and treat them like animals. Many did not know where to sleep that very night. Parents were at a loss on what to say to their children who wanted to know why. Many of these houses - now ruins - had stood and sheltered people for over two decades. Going late into the night one could still see women with kids strapped on their backs behind carts carrying the little they could scavenge out of the rubble. Many just lit up fires to warm their kids and slept in the open. Refugees in their own country. When I went to check out a tuck shop run by one of my comrades for years that had become a favourite spot for youths in the hood only one block with the YAHWE inscribed on it remained. Everything else was now a dusty memory.

In Chitungwiza the picture was much more depressing. Soon after the demolitions which left thousands in the open there was a heavy down pour. Everything was wet and muddy. When I got to my brother's house, a family had huddled onto his verandah with all they could pick up from the rubble. Husband, wife and kids, they were all there thinking about what to do next. Inside a neighbour's kids were sleeping in the lounge. Their cottage had been destroyed whilst the mother was away at a funeral leaving the kids stranded on their own in the middle of a rainy winter night. It took me eight hours of waiting at the terminus the next day to get transport into town. Makoni bus terminus was swarming with hundreds of commuters who wanted to get into town, many of whom had to cancel their plans for the day because of the serious transport crisis.

This is the anguish and suffering that Mugabe has visited upon those he swore to serve. Every other township has its sad story to tell. In Tafara a kid died when a wall fell on her. In Gweru a man committed suicide from the stress and desperation of the situation. The media carried stories of a mother who had to drag her terminally ill son from a burning hut torched by the police. The whole structure crumbled just as they darted out.

Many HIV/AIDS patients who were on ARVs [anti-retroviral drugs] are in a tragic position. Many of those caught up in the mess have been displaced in ways that make it impossible for them to carry on with their prescriptions. This is almost like summary execution for all these poor souls because the rule with ARVs is that you stick to the course 100%, otherwise you become resistant to the drug and die.

At the Fife Avenue Shopping Center, vendors come out to their old places in the night. Against all odds they try to sell something; Bundles of vegetables, tomatoes, onions, bananas, avocados and so on. They have no choice. They have families to feed. Their kids have to go to school. They must pay rent. It's their only means of survival. One sees mostly women literally begging passersby to buy their vegetables and staff. Every now and then they glance sideways for the cops who may raid at any time. The police regularly carry out night raids on which they beat up and arrest the women and seize their goods, which they convert to their own use. The women look visibly stressed and if you talk to them they will tell you that they have no other choice. It's the only way they can feed their families. Life is hard, they are no jobs, there are serious shortages of basic commodities and prices are going up everyday.

When I was arrested on the eve of last week's stay away whilst mobilizing for the action, the cops picked up a vendor on the way to the charge office and took us to one of the police internal security intelligence (PISI) "interrogation" rooms. They made the vendor to lie down on the floor and he was beaten merciless with a wooden plank. Whilst beating him the cop kept on shouting that,"you are being told go and work on the farms but you are refusing". After beating the poor guy senseless he was told to go and pay a $25 000 fine for vending. The cops remained with his whole basket of apples; their fringe benefits.

On the streets the same war on the homeless poor is raging on. The cops are rounding up the homeless, beggars, the mentally deranged and all those who have been living on the streets. These people are being dumped onto farms such as Caledonia where they are practically prisoners. A close comrade who went to one of the farms almost suffered a nervous breakdown. People live under 24hrs police guard. There are strict security checks on anyone getting in including a picky body search. Because of the humanitarian crisis in the camps police have now allowed aid workers to come in and help with the situation. No journalists are allowed into the camps and even the aid workers are given an "escort" who censors what they can discuss with those inside the camps. Cameras are not allowed in. Cell phones too, the police say that they have information that some of the cell phones take pictures.

One needs to be prepared for the horrible scene inside the camp. The mentally sick who were roaming the streets are tied onto trees to restrain them. There is no safe drinking water, people are drinking from the same dam they use for bathing. No houses or toilets. People sleep in the open and use the bush for ablution. The tents that were donated by some aid groups are just heaped somewhere. Just like in other places the people have not been allowed to pitch the donated tents with the police arguing that they will constitute illegal structures. The place is near a dam so it gets freezing cold. Women, man and children sleep in the open just like that. Some of the inhabitants are terminally ill and in desperate need of medication. Itís just gruesome. This is what lurks behind the scenes of a clean street. People denied of their being and relegated to the status of animals.

The police are so overzealous in their street round ups to the extent that many times they have bundled onto trucks some people for simply being "poorly" dressed and therefore suspected to be living on the street. Some comrades doing humanitarian work in one of the camps where they have given tents and set up a preschool where given eight man to drive back to town on one of their trips. These had finally convinced the police that they had families waiting and worrying about them at home. They had mistakenly been rounded up as street people, just because they were "poorly" dressed.

One of the greatest fears that people in the holding camps have is that they will be turned into pools for cheap labour to serve on state farms and those owned by Zanu PF Chiefs. Already the Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono who belongs to the Zanu PF faction behind the "clean up" campaign has called for the construction of more prisons saying those arrested must be sent to work on farms for a season or so. It can also be argued that the government is destroying peopleís means of livelihood so that they have no choice but to become farm labourers, as they want them to be. Very much similar to how the colonial regime introduced Chibharo - or forced labour - on the farms.

The ferocity and scale of what is happening now in the history of independent Zimbabwe is second only to the early eighties Gukurahundi genocide in Matabeleland and the Midlands in which the fifth brigade slaughtered over 20 000 poor peasants.

The regime's determination to kill in this operation is as resolute as during the Gukurahundi era. Police Senior Assistant Commissioner Edmore Veterai told over 2 000 of his officers before dispatching them into action following some resistance in the ghettoes where people put up barricades and fought running battles with the police: "Why are you letting the people toss you around when you are the police? From tomorrow, I need reports on my desk saying that we have shot people. The president has given his full support to this operation so there is nothing to fear. You should treat this operation like war. Those people fighting back need to be taught bitter lessons because that is the only way to avoid further confrontation." This is exactly what it is. War. On the poor. On the World Refugee Day to prove a point the police arrested 30 WOZA women who took to the streets on the day protesting that, "we are now refugees with no refuge", in our own country. For simply saying this these women had to spend the whole weekend in cells and endure harassment.

With this one, Mugabe has set off a time-bomb and its now count down to detonation. The current tense silence will not be for long. Increasingly the atmosphere is getting charged up and maybe Jabulani Sibanda the Chair of the War Veterans association summarized it best when he said, "the government has this time ignited a bonfire which is going to backfire". Once government started valuating itself against the strength of its army, its police and its air power, then there is something wrong. We cannot have a situation where government strength is measured by the strength of its forces as opposed to support from the masses. People are like a coiled spring: if you suppress it, it comes together and becomes dangerous. They might not rise today, but rise they shall: "war veterans are prepared to defend the revolution whether within Zanu PF or outside, and the revolution is the will of the people, not a few government officials". Time will tell, like Bob Marley said.