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Living under 'Operation Go to Sleep'
IRIN News
April 11, 2007

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71565

MHONDORO, 11 April 2007 (IRIN) - As early as seven in the evening there is no sign of life at the Mamina shopping centre in Mhondoro, a village 100km west of Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. Since the police crackdown on the opposition in March, an unofficial curfew has been in place across the country. Residents have complained of raids on shopping centres, particularly pubs.

A policeman who participated in the crackdown said the raids had been codenamed 'Operation Chirara' (Go to Sleep), and their superiors had told them the action was necessary to forestall unrest.

A month ago, Mamina was a hub of activity: in its numerous liquor stores loud music blared till late at night while local residents sat drinking with the workers from nearby farms.

"Since political disturbances flared up in Harare and elsewhere in early March there is virtually no night life here in Mhondoro," a resident told IRIN. "The police here have all but imposed a curfew on the people, and they are afraid to venture out after dusk."

In February the police imposed a three-month ban on political gatherings, and then cracked down on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) when it attempted to hold a meeting in Harare in March. An opposition party supporter was killed and MDC leaders were beaten up.

This set off a wave of violence: more opposition supporters were arrested and beaten up and there was a string of petrol bombings around the country. A resident claimed that since then the local police began raiding shops in Mhondoro, beating the patrons and forcing them to go home.

"They [police] would come in a truck and order everyone out, saying no one was supposed to be seen drinking after nine ... [people] would hurriedly leave this place as soon as it gets dark, because they are afraid of being assaulted," said a shop owner.

He is considering closing down his liquor outlet because of poor patronage. "I might only reopen after the elections next year." Zimbabwe is expected to hold both parliamentary and presidential elections by March 2008.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was not aware of 'Operation Chirara' and the raids, and would investigate.

Samuel Katanha, a teacher at a local secondary school, now resorts to taking a tipple at home after being assaulted by the police during one of their raids.

"One day they came and ordered everyone to lie face down. They used baton sticks to beat us and I made the mistake of challenging them ... The six of them turned on me and accused me of being big-headed because I was a teacher. They assaulted me all over the body and I suffered a broken tooth, but that did not deter them from arresting me and falsely accusing me of refusing to obey an order from the police," Katanha told IRIN.

His ordeal did not end there: when he visited the clinic, the nurse on duty told him that he needed to obtain a police report on how he sustained his injury, but the police refused to help him. "They told me to go and report to Raymond Majongwe [president of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe] and that was when I decided to travel to Harare to see a private doctor, meeting my own transport and medical expenses."

At the beginning of the year, the union organised a strike to demand higher salaries, so the police and members of the ruling party now view Katanha with suspicion because, as a schoolteacher, he is considered a member of the opposition.

Tonderai Gwari, 31, who pans for gold in the nearby Ngezi River with his friends and always looked forward to an evening at the shopping centre with them, said the police were "being overzealous over nothing".

"I don't understand the brutal action by the police on fun-loving people. This area is a ZANU-PF [ruling party] stronghold and there are no chances that the MDC will win here. We have not witnessed any cases whereby people tried to cause disturbances, and we cannot be made to live in fear in an area where we were born and bred," he told IRIN.

Because of lack of transport and adequate manpower, Gwari claimed, the police were using youth militia and some war veterans to monitor shopping centres in the Mhondoro area, reporting individuals they suspected of being potential troublemakers.

He alleged that the militia had formed vigilante groups, which patrolled the area in the name of neighbourhood watch committees and told villagers that they would not receive food aid unless they were active members of the ruling party.

"Since there is drought this year, there are plans to form food-for-work brigades, whereby people will reclaim gullies and participate in road construction, but these militia are saying that only active members of ZANU-PF will be considered," said Gwari.

Pedzisayi Ruhanya of Crisis in Zimbabwe, a coalition of more than 300 nongovernmental organisations, said the virtual curfews imposed on the villagers by the police were meant to intimidate the people because "the ruling party, especially from 2000, has depended mainly on rural areas for support, but the worsening economy is changing that; they are therefore not leaving anything to chance".

Describing the country as being in a "de facto state of emergency", Ruhanya said the police were denying people the right of freedom of movement by flushing them out of areas of entertainment without legal justification.

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