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Letter from a devastated Bulawayo resident
Bulawayo resident
June 05, 2005

Dear friends,

Today I write from a devastated Bulawayo. When I said that after the election there would be greater repression I could not possibly have imagined what is happening in Zimbabwe now, first in Harare starting nearly two weeks ago, and now coming to us. The police started yesterday evening and continued today with the result that all the fruit and vegetable stalls on Fith Ave, all the stalls of every sort in Lobengula Street mall, the whole of Entumbane informal market, the furniture and mattress makers in Makokoba and all the food and clothing sellers and service -providers at Renkini are history. The "World Bank" is an otherworldly scene of twisted iron bars and metal frames of what were once market stalls. There are piles of rubble everywhere lying in chaos and the police are trying to shovel it away. Late this morning they attacked the sellers along Lobengula street, dumping their wares into police trucks and burning the stalls. Smoke was wafting everywhere.

The mayor went to try to explain to the vendors that the city council had nothing to do with it and was not even told, but some threw stones at him. They cannot resist the police by try to stone the one person who is trying to help them. Other women beseiged the council offices. Later the mayor met with representatives of the vendors. This afternoon a convoy of six huge police trucks was seen coming from Entumbane loaded with remnants of stalls. I haven't heard anything about Sekusile market or Emganwini, but doubtless they have also been destroyed. With the exception of Emganwini and probably Sekusile, all these are legally designated stalls for vendors, for which they get licenses from the City Council and pay monthly fees.

There are no words to describe what this means to hundreds of thousands of people who eke out a living selling on the streets, trying to get by when the formal economy has collapsed. If ever any government has behaved like this, not to a selected, ostracized or demonised group of its population, but to the entire country, even their own supporters, I don't know where or when it existed. They have not just openly stolen peoples' goods, but their entire livelihoods.

Do they expect them to go to rural areas where everyone knows there is no food? Could Didymus Mutasa have really meant it when he said that we only need six million Zimbabweans, not twelve?

In Bulawayo at least we have few informal settlements where people lived, but there are some, and doubtless we will hear about them soon. Late this afternoon the streets of the business centre were eerily empty as most cars do not have fuel. Many people have simply parked their cars and try to walk. Every petrol station has a long queue snaking around the block, leading to a sign on the forecourt saying "No Fuel". It appears that there is none. Anywhere

Our brains are evidently not equipped to absorb or give meaning to the destruction that has been perpetrated. We are not, as far as we know, at war, but that is what appears to be happening. Our government is making war on the nation. We cannot attempt to explain it, and everyone is in a state of shock. We cannot "adjust" any more to our fate, but as a people we are paralysed by fear and desperation. There will be prayer meetings of the faithful, all night vigils, but when the Amen is said, nothing will have changed. Hopelessness in the face of unspeakable evil and violence is our future.

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