Clean up victims still stranded as governor threatens more demolitions

By Lance Guma
18 April 2006

Harare’s Metropolitan governor David Karimanzira has told desperate victims of Operation Murambatsvina to destroy the new structures they have built or face another demolition exercise. Karimanzira told the state media that new ‘illegal structures’ were mushrooming in Harare and that this defeated the whole purpose of Operation Murambatsvina last year.

It’s reported that people who had their home industries, roadside garages, barbershops, hair salons and tuckshops destroyed are rebuilding them again to try and eke out a living. The plight of those affected has never been of concern to the politicians as evidenced by Karimanzira declaring that ‘they must destroy them on their own before the law takes its course.’

The Combined Harare Ratepayers Association (CHRA) has on countless occasions protested the neglect of victims of the clean up exercise. Some of the victims are lined up alongside the banks of the Mukuvisi River in Harare with no proper shelter, food or medication. Its estimated 700 000 people were displaced by the controversial exercise which saw the demolition of several houses and vending stalls. Political analysts say the exercise was meant to be a pre-emptive strike against a restive urban population unhappy at the spiralling cost of living and dwindling political freedoms.

Meanwhile city authorities are locked in personal disputes over the purchase of several mansions in the suburbs at cut-price amounts. CHRA spokesman Precious Shumba last week told Newsreel this was the predictable outcome of having unelected officials running the affairs of the city. Their loyalty was with the regime and not the people of Harare, he said.