Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Police smash more homes in Harare
Michael Hartnack, Mail & Guardian (SA)
July 05, 2005

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/

Armed paramilitary police swept through a Harare township, pulling down more than 100 prefabricated wooden cabins -- including one in which screaming children had taken refuge, witnesses and opposition activists said on Tuesday.

Monday's raid took place despite promises that police are winding down Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, a so-called urban renewal drive that has destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans.

Police could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

It was the latest in a series of raids against Hatcliffe township, where an estimated 20 000 people have already been forced from their homes since police started torching and bulldozing shantytowns, markets and other structures deemed illegal on May 19.

A United Nations envoy is in Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian impact of the campaign, which aid workers and opposition leaders estimate has displaced up to 1,5-million people at the height of the Southern African winter. Police put the figure at about 120 000.

Since UN envoy Anna Tibaijuka's visit was announced, government officials have repeatedly stated that the demolished homes will be replaced with a Z$3-trillion (R2,2-billion) reconstruction effort.

On Monday morning, truckloads of paramilitary troops raided Hatcliffe, smashing homes, chasing street vendors and seizing their wares, witnesses said.

"First they came after us sellers at the market area, where the council gave us the green light to sell," said Brighton Chiwolo, a cigarette seller who lost his job as a supermarket checkout clerk last year. "Then they went from street to street, ordering people to demolish the cottages that were there."

"Some five or six kids that were there ran and locked themselves in a cottage, and then the police went and demolished it with iron bars while the kids -- aged nine, 10, 11 -- started screaming," he said.

The children escaped unharmed, but another resident was injured when a sheet of roofing fell on his foot, Chiwolo said.

Officials have said previously they are targeting illegal structures, but Hatcliffe residents said they are being forced from land and homes given to them by the government itself ahead of elections in recent years.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told journalists in South Africa on Monday that the demolitions appear aimed at breaking up opposition strongholds among the urban poor and diverting attention from the government's economic failings.

The destruction comes at a time of economic crisis in Zimbabwe, where inflation has topped 144%, unemployment is about 70% and an estimated four million are in urgent need of food.

"I am going on playing hide and seek with the police. I still have to sell -- I cannot find a job," Chiwolo said.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said in a statement on Tuesday that the evictions have also disrupted HIV/Aids treatment programmes and left the sick exposed to the elements. A number of people have reportedly died of pneumonia since they were left to sleep in the open.

Tibaijuka, the Tanzanian head of UN Habitat, planned to visit Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo on Tuesday, scene of sporadic violence during the campaign.

David Coltart, spokesperson for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, estimated about 30 000 people have been left homeless in the south-western city.

"There are relatively few on the streets here because churches have opened their doors," he said. "Every church hall is jam-packed with internally displaced people and families are doubled-up in homes."

Jenni Williams, a Bulawayo-based activists with Women of Zimbabwe Arise, said her women's rights group hopes to tell Tibaijuka: "Zimbabweans are not expendable."

"Mugabe has been operating with such impunity, and he expects voluntary organisations and the international community to clean up after him," Williams said. -- Sapa-AP

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP