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ZLP condemns "Operation Restore Order"
Zimbabwe Liberators Platform (ZLP)
June 16, 2005

Government’s ongoing nation-wide "Operation Restore Order" has brutally deprived hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans of their livelihood and shelter as it embarks on a grotesque spree of destroying informal sector facilities, crops and homes. In the process, people were assaulted and injured, children are out of school, homeless families spend winter nights in the open and household effects were damaged. Thus a deliberate humanitarian crisis has been created.

Obviously, the operation is unlawful, brutal and insensitive as it violates human rights and inflicts untold suffering on an innocent population. Even the war veterans, who were used as cannon fodder by the ruling ZANU PF party to invade farms in 2000, have also become victims.

The motive for the unprecedented action is unclear and misguided. The official explanation says government is restoring order and nipping crime in the bud. But who created the disorder in the first place? How long has this disorder been going on? From historical facts, some of the informal sector facilities were set up before independence (eg flower and curio stands at Africa Unity Square), others (including unapproved houses) have been in existence for ten, fifteen or twenty years. So why has it become necessary to take action now? Why did government nurture the problem for so long before taking action?

As liberation movements, ZANU PF and ZAPU fought to restore, uphold and protect people’s fundamental rights and freedoms. The ZANU PF 1980 manifesto said, "Every worker and his family have the right to adequate accommodation." It added that every citizen’s right to personal property and to a self-acquired home would be protected. Why then is government negating the ruling party’s policies?

Liberation war heroes sacrificed their lives (thousands fell) for the noble cause of restoring human dignity to the black majority. Some of them must be turning in their graves when their comrades and the people they liberated are brutalised by a government borne out of a bitter liberation struggle.

A good number of war veterans have over the years shown unquestionable loyalty to the ruling party and government, campaigning for ZANU PF during the national elections and intimidating voters as well as violently invading farms. But today they are being dumped and assaulted, have their homes destroyed and their pieces of land taken away from them. Their human rights are trampled upon with impunity. Why? Was that the leadership’s strategy to dump the war veterans at this stage after tarnishing their image?

The people are also wondering why government has turned against them with such brutality, insensitivity and vindictiveness. Why would government destroy people’s homes before providing alternative accommodation? Why worsen the record high unemployment and create a social and political problem by destroying such big employers as flea and other (musika) markets, home industries, informal traders and vendors? Instead of reducing crime, government is increasing it as the newly unemployed use any means necessary to eke living.

Instead of consulting, listening to and assisting people, the leaders have resorted to inhuman and violent methods of achieving a misguided, unclear, absurd and indefensible political objective.

The Zimbabwe Liberators Platform strongly condemns " Operation Restore Order " and urges government to abandon it without delay while it seeks to alleviate the inhuman suffering it has caused.

Why is government squandering the nation’s resources and energy on "restoring order", when it should seek effective and permanent ways of resolving the fuel crisis whose implications on the nation and the economy are far-reaching, and ending the shortage of such basic commodities as sugar, maize meal, cooking oil, milk and bread?

ZLP National Council

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