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Zimbabwe Parliament debate on Operation Murambatsvina - Page 4
Extracted from Hansard Vol. 32, No. 5
Parliament of Zimbabwe
June 23, 2005

View list of 2005 Zimbabwe Parliamentarians

Jump to contributions by:
- MR MUSHORIWA
- MR. MZILA NDLOVU
- MR. MUTSEKWA
- THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE (MR. CHIHOTA)
- MR. SIKHALA
- MR. MUGABE
- MR. MZEMBI
- MISS STEVENSON
- THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY (MR. MATONGA)
- MR. COLTART

THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY: Madam Speaker, I do not intend to go into mud slinging. We need to stick to the core issues. We need our people to have decent accommodation, running water and decent schools. It is important that we stick to that. For hon. members from the opposite side to start saying that we should not do that, I think it is unfair for the people they pretend to be representing. The people that they are talking about do not have decent homes. They live in shacks, there is no running water and there are diseases. They have done nothing for the last five years they have been elected as Members of Parliament. Now that the Government is doing the right thing, they are beginning to make noises. I think it is very unfair and hypocritical. Everyone was affected. Friends, relatives it does not matter but everyone was affected. It is the right thing and I do not think that there should be any noises.

I feel saddened when people say that life was better during the Ian Smith and the Muzorewa regime. It is very bad that in this day and age we have people think like that. The were no black Member of Parliament before 1980. Now we have got a previlege of having a person like Hon. Coltart who was the member of the BSAP who is sitting here and saying there is no discipline and no order. He has been given this opportunity to represent those very people. He cannot say that there is no balance here. This is very unfair, when I see hon. members using a hake fish - that is not the thing that we want. We should be working on developmental issues and not the hake fish - [HON. MEMBERS: [Inaudible interjections ] worse now there are sanctions. Where there are sanctions, people suffer, the sanctions have been brought about by the hon. members of the opposite side. They are now saying there is no fuel. It is important that we have decent accommodation, decent schools for our children. That is what the Government is doing. There will not be any going back on the "Operation Murambatsvina.

MR. COLTART: Madam Speaker, we have heard in the course of the last hour or so justifications from the Government benchers but we need to deal with hard objective facts. The reality is that in the last 4 weeks, since this campaign began, hundreds of thousands of the poorest of the poor, have been disposed of their homes and many have been deprived of their own source of income. My colleagues have spoken not of MDC figures, but figures announced by reputable international organisation. The United Nations has used the figures 200 000 people rendered homeless. The other UN organisation have yesterday or today spoke of 400 000 rendered homeless.

Madam Speaker, in any society that surely should be a cause for concern and these are indisputable figures. I have been shocked this afternoon by some of the comments made by hon. members on the other side such as the need for shock treatment from the Hon. Mzembi - the need to restore the dignity of the people. I look at some of my friends on the other side, people whom I have known for many years and I ask you to ask yourself what has happened to your party? What is it that causes such an incredible callous when 64 000 people are rendered homeless and we get statements like "shock treatments"

Madam Speaker, I believe that statement can only be made when people have not themselves seen the suffering of people and that is why I would like to continue in the vain of the previous speaker but one. I want to tell this Hon. House what has happened in Bulawayo because this is a nation wide campaign and these are the event that I have witnessed with my own eyes. Madam Speaker, it began in Bulawayo on the 1st of June, I received a report that the police were systematically going through 5th Avenue and through the Lobengula Mall. Madam Speaker, for your benefit and the benefit of the hon. members of this House, that a ZANU PF controlled City Council in the early 1990s, set a path for the informal traders.

Madam Speaker, if you go there today, you will see the walls that had been constructed at 5th Avenue which runs from the west to east in Bulawayo. There are traffic signs which indicate that there is no through way. There are painted bays on the tarmac for the informal traders. These bays were allocated to informal traders and they had licences given to them by the City Council.

The vast majority of these people were swept away on the 1st of June. They saw the police coming to them, because they could not believe what was happening, they told the police that they were not illegal people. The police could not listen to them - I am pleased that the Hon. Minister is here to hear what his own police officers have done. The police officers also illegally looted the material that they were selling. They took that material and this is from the poorest of the poor.

Madam Speaker, I spoke to one vendor a week after this had happened. He told me that on that day he had $ 2.5 million worth of merchandise. This was not foreign exchange. All his goods were looted by the law enforcement agents on the 1st of June. If you go to Lobengula Street Mall, you will see that it is just like 5th Avenue, it was orderly. There are traffic signs, there are bays painted to be used by informal traders. These were all swept away. By half past four in the afternoon when I drove, there was single informal trader in 5th Avenue or Lobengula Street. The police did not just take away the goods but they also burnt property lawfully there.

On Monday the 6th of June, they went top Unity Village. Let me explain Unity Village Madam Speaker. The Unity Village was set up probably 10-15 years ago, on the corner of 9th Avenue and 10th Avenue by Mr. Nann who has been a long standing supporter of ZANU PF and ZAPU before that. Millions must have been invested in Unity Village. There is a beautiful wall that has been constructed. The police systematically went to Unity Village - I have some photographs, if the other hon. members wish to see them. There were 35 police trucks that came to the Unity Village. The police systematically cleared the whole of Unity Village. I have been going around talking to people and they have said that they have never seen their goods, they last saw them when police were confiscating them - who knows where?

I ask the hon. member to explain to this august House, what happened to those goods? What has happened the proceeds of those goods? These goods were clothing, blankets, foodstuffs and lawful goods being sold by people who were lawfully in Unity Village, who went about their business lawfully and paid their dues to the City Council. It is an absolute disgrace that it did not end there.

The following week on the 11th and 12th of June, I visited Kilan which is an area in Bulawayo. Kilan has got informal settlements and in the interest of objectivity, one makes the concession that those were illegal settlements, these illegal settlements provided the homes of absolutely destitute people, the poorest of the poor. On this very weekend, I personally witnessed what the police did. They came in their vehicles and razed down the homes of old people without any notice being given. They left these people out that night in the cold.

On the Sunday evening, I visited one particular woman aged 70 years. She was siting in front of her burnt dwelling, shell shocked. Hon. Made needs to hear this clearly because one cannot talk in such a callous manner about the lives of poor people. Let me explain the plight of this woman that I saw. The 70 year old woman sitting absolutely distraught in the ruins of her house with a seven year grand son next to her. She told me that her husband had died five months ago and on the evening, her daughter aged 28 had died of AIDS. She was left as a "gogo" with orphaned grand children. She told me that she had originated from South Africa. She had lived there for ten years and she was absolutely petrified because the police on Saturday said that if she had not moved by Monday they would be back with dogs and horses - [HON. MEMBER: That is your imagination] - That is not my imagination.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: I kindly ask hon. members to switch off their cell phones.

MR. COLTART: Through the benevolence of churches in Bulawayo, not the Government as it is its duty, some of the most destitute people have been moved into church halls. The Methodist Church has conducted an exercise and has gone through the names of all the peoples affected. Over 50% of the people displaced do not have rural homes and they come from either Malawi, Zambia or Botswana. That is the reason why they were in Kilani. They cannot be moved to any rural home. They are destitute. I urge hon. members who are interjecting to take time to go to Caledonia farm and to speak one on one with the victims - do not come in your Mercedes Benz and sweep through, look them in the eye and find out their plight. This has got nothing to do with restoring dignity.

I would like to venture for motivations which are behind this. The first is fury. I have no absolute doubt that this has been motivated as a result of the election. We need to recall what ZANU PF said in the run up to the election. The newspaper advertisements said that they were going to bury MDC. There was talk of a clean sweep but of course, that did not happen. The fact of the matter is, but only one constituency the opposition won every single seat in the urban areas.

It is also interesting to see what areas have been affected by this operation. The only people who know the real results are my learned friends on that side. We know for example that we won in Bindura and several seats in Gokwe. It is no coincidence that Bindura is one of the areas affected by this operation and the real reason is simply retribution.

The second point is fear. This Government knows that it cannot fulfil the promises that it made in the run up to the election. In those same advertisements, it promised an end to fuel queues and restoration of ties with international community. None of that has happened.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Madzore, can you withdraw that statement that "Akauraya munhu".

MR. MADZORE: I withdraw.

MR. COLTART: This has been a pre-empted strike to intimidate the people who may rise up in the protest of this Government. I believe it is designed as a physical cleaning of streets so that there are places to hide rocks or anything like that by the same people who may rise up. There is an intention to drive back people to the rural areas where they can be easily controlled.

The third reason, I believe is all about foreign exchange. In this context, the speech of the Governor of the Reserve Bank on the 19th of May, is pertinent. I remind you of some of the language used by Dr. Gono in his speech. I am simply quoting from his speech he said that the time had come to turn from the financial sector to individuals when dealing with the parallel market problem. His language - he used the language of cleansing and he also said the people must not cry when the long arm of the law comes to these people as it will do so soon. I believe that there is a direct link between Governor Gono's speech on the 19th of May and what is happening. To understand this, one of the principal failures of the Reserve Bank in the last year, I think I can say without fear of contradiction, that our biggest export in Zimbabwe is our labour.

Madam Speaker, that is why in broad terms, the only white farmers who have remained are those with connections to ZANU PF people, like Charles Bailey, who is a business partner of Webster Shamu.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not mention names of people who can not come and defend themselves here.

MR. COLTART: If you look at the allocation of farms, those white farmers who have remained, you will see a connection between those people and ZANU PF and I believe the intention now in the urban areas is precisely the same. They want to control over the allocation of housing stands, over the allocation of vending sites from democratically elected City Councils and give it to Governors so that they can extend their patronage. This has got nothing to do with restoring dignity or dealing with law.

Let me turn to the law Madam Speaker. My good friend the Hon. Leader of the House, yesterday and I believe Hon. Mzembi and Hon. Chihota said that this is all about restoring the rule of law. Let us look at the law, the legal situation my hon. friend Miss Stevenson has referred to the advertisement that was placed in The Herald on the 26th of May, which purports to utilise the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act to justify what is happening.

Madam Speaker, there is a problem with using that route. First, Section 32 of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act makes it quite clear that those affected by an enforcement order must be served. You cannot just publish an advertisement in the newspaper and take that as service. Service is personal, that is why we have the use of the word service in this Act. If the Commission running Harare wished to lawfully deal with these structures, it should have notified personally through service of an enforcement order on each person who was alleged to have an illegal extension.

Section 32 (4) of the same Act says that any enforcement order, let me read it to you " . . . any enforcement order shall only become operational not less than 1 month from the date the order was served . . . " In other words, these orders could not be enforced sooner than 1 month after the 26th of May and as we have already heard, that law was wilfully disregarded by law enforcement officials. The law was broken in a blazing, fragrant manner.

Let me turn to the position that applies to Bulawayo in particular, that is Section 199 of the Urban Councils Act. This is the Section of our law which gives Council the right to deal with illegal structures -- be they housing or vending structures. The first point to note is that it is the Council that is given the right to enforce proper town planning. In the case of Bulawayo and other urban centres outside Harare, Council did not give the police permission, it did not ask the police to enforce orders and councils themselves played no role in trying to demolish structures.

Section 199 goes on to state that once people have been served by a notice, they have 28 days within which to appeal and the act makes it quite clear that no demolition will take place during that period. Once again, in flagrant disregard of the law, the police acting presumably on the instructions of Government and not Bulawayo City Council, with no notice whatsoever, destroyed structures, destroyed vending sites, and destroyed homes totally illegally. So when the Hon Leader of the House and the other members say this is to restore the rule of law, they are deliberately misleading this House because law enforcement agents have fragrantly and blazingly breached these two aspects of our law.

Let me turn to the international position. My hon. friend Miss. Stevenson, has already spoken about one covenant, I want to talk about the Treaty of Rome because the hon. members need to understand that there are consequences for their actions. There are domestic consequences for their actions. There is no doubt in my mind that those who have been subjected to unlawful conduct can sue the police for the damages caused to their property. There are also international consequences. Madam Speaker, we have seen in the course of the last weeks, several senior members of ZANU PF talking about the fact that everyone has a rural home. In fact, that statement was repeated in this House this afternoon. Hon. Mzembi, if I heard him correctly, said that we are going to reverse urban drift, we are going to send people back to their rural homes. Hon. Chigwedere was quoted in The Herald last Monday saying that every person has a rural home.

Let me remind this Hon House and hon. members, of the provisions of Article 7 of the Treaty of Rome. This is the treaty that governs the International Criminal Court. Article 7 says, "the forcible removal of people is a crime against humanity." Hon members need to note this; this goes way beyond the MDC, the opposition or the civil society. This is an International law where a Government forcibly removes people from their homes, where a Government engages in social engineering and forcibly remove people from urban areas to rural areas. That is a crime against humanity.

I am now going to turn to that aspect - I want to speak about humanity and compassion.

Time limit.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER : Order, your time has expired.

MR. MUSHORIWA: I move a motion that the hon. member's time be extended. - [MR. CHINAMASA: I object]

MR. COLTART: I am almost finished. I want to talk about humanity and compassion. It is common cause that this action has been done in mid-winter. All of us in this House understand the need for people to have decent housing and no one disputes a genuine policy. A properly planned programme to take people from shacks . . .

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Coltart, someone objected to the extension. Can you wind up?

MR. COLTART: I am grateful to you. Any patriotic Zimbabwean would support a properly organised programme to get people decent housing. I remind this House that one of the promises made by ZANU PF in the early 1990s was, "Housing for all by the year 2000". Sadly, that has not happened. If this Government had embarked on this programme by building decent houses first and moving people systematically into those houses, then no-one would have taken any objection to this. Having done the same in the trading sector by building vending sites first, no-one could have uttered a single complaint about this but that is not the way that this has happened. This has happened in mid-winter. This has happened when no provision has been made, there is nothing in the budget that we debated in November last year that caters for this catastrophe.

We need 64 000 houses and we need them yesterday. We know that we did not get 64 000 houses in the last ten years, never mind building them in the next three months. It is simply callous to speak about plots that have been allocated because anyone who is truthful will know that with the best will in the world, this Government and indeed any Government, cannot provide adequate shelter for the thousands of people who are now in the cold without shelter - babies, children, grandmothers, it is simply appalling.

Madam Speaker, one of my favourite songs and I commend it to you all is Psalms 7. Psalm 7 says that, "wicked people devise evil schemes. They dig holes for other people to fall into but fall into those holes themselves. Their evil acts abound against them". Those are not my words, those are words found in Psalms 7. Whatever the motivation of this Government behind this - I do not know. Perhaps they have had pure motives but they need to be reminded that if they have got evil motivations, these acts will come to rebound against them.

We need a Government which will treat people with basic respect, respect for their humanity. We need a Government that will spend money on housing not on Mercedes Benz, not on military aircraft. Housing is one of the most important aspects of any society. A basic house, a basic shelter breeds a strong and a stable family. If you deprive people of that basic right, you tear apart the very fabric of society. I fear that we in this nation have created not just an absolute catastrophe from a humanitarian perspective. I fear for the future of this country where a Government can treat people in such a callous manner where young children see policemen who are meant to be respected members of society, burning their homes down, treating their grandmothers as if they are dogs. What values does that build in this generation of children? These are things that rational, sober-minded members of this Government need to take very seriously. We urge them to stop this policy immediately before they do further harm to our nation.

THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS: I move that the debate now adjourn.

Motion put and agreed to.

Debate to resume : Tuesday, 28th June 2005

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