Zimbabwe’s Security Clears out Entire Towns

The government of Zimbabwe is a gangster regime that fails to reach Stalinist proportions largely because the nation lacks the infrastructure and appalling weather to pull it off. However, its aspirations to the mantle of Stalin were made clear this week as the police began “Operation Murambatsvina,” which means “Operation clear up the trash.” More than 20,000 have been arrested and entire neighborhoods have been bulldozed. A two-day general strike to protest is getting off to a slow start. Peaceful protest doesn’t work when the authorities are prepared to use lethal force.

President Robert Mugabe explained the action by saying, "The clean-up operation is meant to remove dirt as well as unhealthy circumstances that might breed illness, but also destroy hives in which thieves and other lawbreakers tend to thrive. In fact the clean-up is meant to create a better infrastructure for the ordinary man." Well, one cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Trudy Stevenson, an opposition member of parliament, has described what happened in her constituency of North Harare, in the capital city, "It's like a war, where people disappear and you don't know what happened to them all. They don't know where they're being taken. Their housing material, their log cabins, roofing, windows are being left here on the ground. I'm afraid the police are going to steal it or set fire to it. That's a huge loss, these are some of the poorest people in Zimbabwe. It's terrible." So, there are the broken eggs; what of the omelet?

Inflation in April was running at an annualized rate of 129.1%, down from January 2004’s high of 623%, but the currency is largely worthless. The new homeless from the crackdown number 200,000 or so, bringing the national total over 2 million in a nation of not quite 13 million. And a nation that used to export grain to the rest of hungry Africa needs help feeding its people, after Mr. Mugabe lied last fall claiming his people has so much food they were choking on it.

The general strike is not off to much of a start, and the government will try to dress that up as support for its policies. Instead, it is reminiscent of South Africa in the bad old days. Strikes were often ignored because the people were cowed and too poor to risk missing a day’s pay. Hunger is a political weapon in Zimbabwe, and the latest move to “get rid of the trash” says volumes about how the government views its own people. As the UN has said, it is a new form of “apartheid,” dividing the rich from the poor.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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