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Govt/ NGOs clash over blitz
The Zimbabwe Independent
June 17, 2005

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/news/2005/June/Friday17/2570.html

A FRESH and seemingly irreparable rift has developed between government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) over how to help victims of government's "Operation Murambatsvina".

A series of meetings between the two parties this week came to nothing after government scoffed at NGOs' efforts to alleviate the plight of those affected by the operation.

In Harare alone an estimated 300 000 families have been displaced in the clean-up campaign which started three weeks ago.

Most of them are now camped at Caledonia farm.

Documents in the possession the Zimbabwe Independent show that on Wednesday NGOs wanted government to stop the controversial campaign and allow the provision of emergency aid to the people who have already been displaced and are living out in the cold.

"Destruction and reconstruction cannot run concurrently," says the submission made by NGOs.

"Stop the destruction and re-deploy national efforts and resources to reconstruction."

The NGOs also proposed mobilisation of national support towards the master plan for reconstruction, and communication to the people on what the operation has achieved so far.

Sources privy to the meeting held at Silveira House in Harare on Wednesday said government turned down the proposal and insisted it was going ahead with the operation despite the crisis it had caused.

"Government wants to force people to the rural areas," civic sources said.

"Churches and NGOs who have housed or helped the displaced people have been labelled enemies of the operation and told to stop."

The government delegation that rejected the NGOs' proposals comprised ministers of Local Government Ignatious Chombo, Agriculture Joseph Made, Home Affairs deputy minister Ruben Marumahoko, and Harare governor David Karimanzira.

The sources said government remains suspicious of NGOs.

However, NGOs have insisted that they cannot ignore a humanitarian crisis.

"We are sitting in limbo," a Roman Catholic priest whose parish has been providing services to displaced people, said in a separate interview.

"We cannot ignore the poor when they come to us for assistance. Government wants us to provide people with bus fares to go to rural areas but not all the displaced people have rural homes."

According to the documents, at the meeting the NGOs stated that there were six categories of people who have been directly affected by the current operation.

The affected have been classified as homeseekers, vendors, informal traders, home industrialists, children and vulnerable groups.

"Homeseekers were people who have been staying in overcrowded hostels, backyard shacks as well as tenants and lodgers," the NGOs said.

"Over the years, they had become organised into housing co-operatives, most of which are registered. The clean up exercise has displaced most of these people.

"The elderly, orphans, disabled, terminally ill and child-headed households have not been spared."

Despite the ongoing negotiations and pressure from the outside world to convince government that its campaign was inhuman, four housing co-operatives were demolished this week.

The volatile Chitungwiza has become the latest victim of government's clean-up yesterday

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