Chombo's Operation Garikai means plastic replaces bricks

By Tererai Karimakwenda
15 August 2005

'Zimbabwe' is 'dzimba dze mabwe' - houses of stone. But that was before operation Murambatsvina and its cousin Operation Garikai. One tore down brick houses that had stood for years, and the other is now replacing them with plastic shacks.
A reporter for the Sunday Times in South Africa says he went back to Harare to see what had become of the displaced families. Dingilizwe Ntuli visited Joshua Nkomo Heights, a settlement in Harare's western Kambuzuma township which had become home to hundreds of war veterans. He found the 400 houses that stood there just weeks ago were now plastic shacks in the midst of the ruins.
One of the war veterans who has vowed that he would not leave, said the government had been blocking food aid in an effort to force them to move to a holding camp or relocate to their rural village. These government operations turned a man who was a self-employed motor mechanic into an unemployed homeless man dependant on the government for food.
This story clearly shows the real motive for the demolitions. By causing dependency, the government aims to control the population that voted for the opposition in the last election. And as war veterans who used to support the Mugabe regime were not spared either, it is quite possible that they too voted against the ruling party in the last election.
At Whitecliff Farm, about 20km west of Harare, where the government said they were starting a massive reconstruction programme for the displaced people, Ntuli found construction was at a standstill the day he visited. Prison inmates were clearing more land, along with graduates of the National Youth Service. One of the youths said trucks delivering building materials had been grounded by fuel shortages.
Local Government Deputy Minister Morris Sakabuya admitted "there have been problems of fuel and concrete". Meanwhile, people are making their own temporary shacks from plastic to shield themselves from the cold. This is not "kugarika" as we know it.