Im Rahmen der Operation Murambatsvina hat die Regierung die Arbeits- und Lebensgrundlagen von mindestens 700'000 Menschen geplant zerstört und viele Menschen von jahrelangen Wohnorten vertrieben. Dabei wurden nicht nur Wellblechhütten zerstört, wie von der Regierung behauptet, sondern auch gemauerte Häuser mit mehreren Zimmern, gemauerte Schulen und Kliniken und Gewerbegebäude. Neben dem unermesslichen menschlichen Leid, das die Folge dieser Aktion ist, wurden auch grosse materielle Werte zerstört. Personen, die ein Einkommen generieren konnten, sind nun auf Hilfe von aussen angewiesen und zu BettlerInnen geworden.

Die Vereinigung Schweiz-Zimbabwe protestierte gegen die unmenschliche Aktion, wie viele andere Organisationen auch. Die UNO schickte eine Sonderbeauftragte zur Abklärung nach Zimbabwe und verurteilte dann nach Kenntnis des Berichts die Zerstörungsaktion ungewöhnlich scharf. Viele Organisationen riefen die UNO und die Afrikanische Union auf, Massnahmen gegen die zimbabwische Regierung zu verhängen.

Die zimbabwische Regierung hat das Land mit dieser Zerstörungsaktion Aktion weiter in die Isolation getrieben. Die Abwärtsspirale hält an und hat mit der Zerstörungsaktion eine bis vor kurzem noch unvorstellbare Verschärfung erhalten. Zimbabwe steht vor dem Ausschluss aus dem Internationalen Währungsfonds, weil es seine Schulden nicht mehr zurückzahlen kann. Der südafrikanische Präsident Mbeki will Zimbabwe mit einem Darlehen helfen. Allerdings steht Mbeki unter grossem Druck, das Darlehen an Bedingungen zu knüpfen, die zu einer Änderung der zimbabwischen Politik führen. Aber Zimbabwe hat sich bis jetzt geweigert, die Bedingungen zu erfüllen und hoffte auf Hilfe aus China. Diese blieb allerdings aus. .

Schon vor der Operation Murambatsvina lebten 70% der Bevölkerung in Armut. Was bringt eine Regierung, die nach der Unabhängigkeit antrat, die Lebensbedingungen der Menschen zu verbessern, dazu, eine solch menschenverachtende und an die Apartheidpolitik erinnernde Zerstörungs- und Vertreibungsaktion gegen die Ärmsten durchzuführen? Für die Oppositionspartei MDC ist der Fall klar: Damit will die Regierung die MDC schwächen, denn ihre Anhänger leben in den zerstörten Siedlungen. Reiner Machterhalt also?

Schwerpunkt dieses Rundbriefes ist die Dokumentation der Auswirkungen der Operation Murambatsvina.

UN report slams slum destruction
By Patrick Wadhams

Zimbabwe's destruction of urban slums is a "disastrous venture" that has left 700 000 people without homes or jobs, violated international law and created a grave humanitarian crisis, according to excerpts of a harshly worded UN report. The report, to be released on Friday morning, detailed the devastating extent of Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, for the first time. It said a further 2.4 million people have been affected by the countrywide campaign that began with little warning on May 19 and has seen thousands of shantytowns, ramshackle markets and makeshift homes demolished. "While purporting to target illegal dwellings and structures and to clamp down on alleged illicit activities, (the operation) was carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering," said the report's executive summary, obtained late on Thursday by The Associated Press.

The report, using language unusually harsh for the United Nations, called for the government to stop the destruction immediately. It said the operation clearly violated international law.UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had dispatched special envoy Anna Tibaijuka to Zimbabwe to study the effects of the campaign and report back her findings. She delivered the document to Annan earlier this week. Tibaijuka suggested that an independent probe could help decide if there was criminal negligence leading to any deaths.

President Robert Mugabe's government has defended the operation as an urban clean-up drive, and has promised to help the displaced rebuild. Zimbabwe's opposition says it is aimed at breaking up its strongholds among the urban poor and forcing them into rural areas where they can be more easily controlled by chiefs sympathetic to the government.

But the report said that even if the operation is a clean-up drive, the campaign - which some have called Operation Restore Order - has been a "crash" operation that will take years for Zimbabwe to recover from. "Even if motivated by a desire to ensure a semblance of order in the chaotic manifestations of rapid urbanisation and rising poverty characteristic of African cities, nonetheless Operation Restore Order turned out to be a disastrous venture," the report said.

Zimbabwe has pledged $325m to provide 1.2 million houses or building plots by 2008 but the report said economists have expressed doubt that the government can afford such a project at a time when Zimbabwe is wracked by triple-digit inflation and in the throes of a severe food crisis.

"The humanitarian consequences of Operation Restore Order are enormous," she said. Tibaijuka said Zimbabwe needs shelter, food, health services, and other essential goods. Tibaijuka is the Tanzanian head of Nairobi-based UN Habitat, which deals with the plight of cities.

(The New York Times 22 July 2005)

Migrants say they have nowhere to go
Clearance Victims Left in Limbo

Zimbabwe's controversial urban clean-up has hit thousands of people of Malawian and Zambian origin who migrated into Zimbabwe during the colonial era to work in mines and on farms. These people, whose homes in squatter camps and shacks in cities and towns were destroyed by the government in Operation Murambatsvina [Shona for "Drive Out the Rubbish"], are sleeping in the open. President Robert Mugabe insists that they must go back to their rural homes, but the victims of the clearances say they no longer have places to return to in their countries of
origin.

Most came to Zimbabwe more than 50 years ago to find work. Their fellow victims include people who migrated more recently from Mozambique as refugees from the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s between the Frelimo and Renamo movements. They are among the countless thousands of migrants whose shack homes have been destroyed in Operation Murambatsvina, launched by Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party in May. Their dire plight is particularly apparent at Porta Farm, a squatter camp 20 kilometres outside Harare, which was demolished by police and army officers in the first week of July. More than half of the 15000 people who were in Porta Camp are from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.Nearly all of had lived at Porta for at least ten years.

"They must just go back to wherever they came from," said National Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri. "We must clean the country of the crawling mass of maggots bent on destroying the economy." One victim is 80-year-old Ganizani Banda who came to Zimbabwe as a sixteen-year-old boy to work in the mines. " The government says we must go back to the rural area, but I don't have one," he told IWPR. "I left Malawi in 1941 and I have never gone back. I have not been in touch with my relatives there." Banda said he used to work at a mine in Kadoma, 176 km southwest of Harare, before being laid off in 1985. Banda subsequently worked on a white-owned commercial farm at Chegutu, near Kadoma, until Mugabe's land invasion campaign, beginning in 2000, drove hundreds of thousands of black farm workers and their families out of their homes and employment.

When his farmer employer had his farm confiscated, Banda moved to Porta Farm. "My whole working life was spent in Zimbabwe's mines and on Zimbabwe's farms," said Banda as he looked at the wreckage of his home. "My wife [72-year-old Molly] and I don't have homes we can go back to in Malawi." The irony of the destruction of Porta Farm is that it was Mugabe's government that established the squatter camp 14 years ago to tidy up Harare ahead of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Zimbabwe for the 1991 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Although Porta Camp was initially made up of people moved from Mbare, Zimbabwe's oldest poor black ghetto, the numbers have swelled over the years as workers displaced from some 4000 white commercial farms flocked there from 2000 onwards. Retrenched and retired miners have also made their homes there.

Another Porta resident, Given Sinosi, 34, said his father came from Malawi in 1953 at the beginning of the short-lived Central African Federation, which Britain tried to unite its colonies of Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia [now Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe], and had spent his entire working life on a farm. Sinosi, born in Zimbabwe, worked on the same farm as his father as a general hand before moving to Porta in 2001 when the property was invaded. "We don't have any home we know other than this camp (Porta). How do they want me to go to Malawi now? I know no one there," said Sinosi. "Telling us to go back where we came from means they are merely telling us that we are no longer wanted in Zimbabwe because we are from Malawi." Sinosi, his wife and their seven-year-old daughter, who have been sleeping on sheets of cardboard in the open since their house was destroyed, said he had not benefited from Mugabe's land reform programme because he, despite having been born in Zimbabwe, is classed as an alien.

The government has in the past accused the farm workers of working with white farmers to sabotage land reform. However, black Zimbabwean peasants initially used as shock troops to invade the farms with promises of land have themselves been driven off by police and soldiers to make way for government ministers, top civil servants, police and army officers and judges who have been allocated the choicest confiscated land and buildings. Many Porta Farm residents see the government action as an ethnic cleansing campaign. They say officials are fully aware that they do not have rural homes to go back to.

The operation at Porta has claimed at least four lives since the beginning of July, according to The Independent, a weekly newspaper. Five-year-old Fanandi Mayere died under the wheels of a government truck. "The caterpillars [government bulldozers] were demolishing our house and my son ran onto the road," said his father, Trynos Mayere. "A truck ran him over, and he died on the spot. His brains were splattered on the ground. We had to pick up his brains. Because I am his father, I had to get sand to cover the blood."

Anna Kajumalo Tibaijuka, the special envoy of United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, in the country to assess the impact of the clean-up campaign, arrived at Porta Farm as police and army officers were demolishing houses. Mounds of brick rubble, plastic sheeting, broken asbestos, iron roofing and smashed furniture were all that remained of the homes of the people. Many residents wept when they saw the envoy. "We are dirt as far as the government is concerned," Samson Banda told Tibaijuka as she walked around the settlement talking to people who felt a mixture of anger, disillusionment and betrayal. "If you can, please ask our leaders what crime we have committed to deserve such punishment," one young woman asked the UN envoy. "They brought us here saying they would build us houses. But we have known nothing but torture and harassment for all the 16 years we have been here." Another woman pleaded with Tibaijuka to ask the UN for help, adding, "If they can't help us, just bury us alive."

An old woman, burning the remains of her furniture to keep warm in the short but harsh southern African winter, pleaded with some of the UN officials to talk to government to spare them. "I am upset by what I have seen here, but please remain calm," Tibaijuka told the homeless residents. "We are going to work together, just be patient. The secretary general is much concerned, that is why he sent me here. We are definitely going to do something about the issue, but we cannot solve the problem at once."

The situation at Porta, which looks as though it has been destroyed in an aerial bombing raid, mirrors what is happening throughout the country. Most aliens are second generation immigrants holding Zimbabwean citizenship by virtue of their birth. They had worked on mines and farms and in factories until the economy began collapsing in 1998, followed by the farm invasions which accelerated economic disintegration.

Mike Zhuwawo, 54, originally from Mozambique, said he crossed into Zimbabwe at the peak of the civil war in the 1980s and settled at Porta in 1993. He said he could not see how he could now begin a new life in Mozambique. "Zimbabwe has become my home. I don't think it's a crime that we are living in shacks. It's poverty," he said. "Where do I start if I go back?" Sitembile Samaneka, 29, born in Zimbabwe of Malawian parents, came to Porta Farm at the age of 15. Widowed three years ago, she looks after her own five children and her dead brother's deaf and dumb son. "I would rather they killed me here as they once threatened earlier," she lamented. "Where do I take all my children? I have never been to Malawi and they insist I should go where I originally came from."

Despite the huge humanitarian crisis, which has exacerbated food shortages and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has infected one in four of the adult population, the government has remained adamant that it intends ridding the cities of "criminal elements" who it accuses of destroying the economy as a part of an anti-Zimbabwe plot by British premier Tony Blair, Mugabe's favourite hate figure. However, Mugabe is also angered with the people of Zimbabwe's cities and towns for having voted against ZANU PF in parliamentary elections last March. Although the party won an election widely believed to have been rigged, urban constituencies voted so overwhelmingly for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, that it was impossible to falsify the results.

Mugabe accused the aliens of being major supporters of the MDC. He said they were unpatriotic because they refused to share ZANU PF's vision: because they had not been part of the liberation struggle against white rule, and had instead "contaminated" locals. Deputy Industry Minister Fineas Chihota told parliament last month that most town dwellers were not Zimbabweans. He added that ninety per cent of MDC MPs "are not indigenous and the constituencies they talked about in towns and cities have no identity and recognition" - an apparent reference to Zimbabwean citizens whose ancestors originated in neighbouring Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.

The overall effect of Operation Drive Out the Rubbish on the people's lives has been calamitous. As many as a million people, in a population of 11.5 million, have been rendered homeless while human rights organisations estimate that about 300,000 children have dropped out of school as a result of the assaults on their homes.

By Dzikamayi Chidyausiku in Harare (Africa Reports No 38, 05-Jul-05. Dzikamayi Chidyausiku is the pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe. Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Africa Reports No 38, 5 July 2005

We cannot live without truth
Report from Mbare 7 July 2005

The displaced people without shelter still spending the night out in the open are the first to receive food and blankets. The queues are not getting shorter. And there are complaints coming from others who, though they still have a roof over their heads, are short of food as well since they can no longer work in their “informal trade”. This is a testing time for the entire Christian community. Being fair to everyone can be difficult. Not every wish can be fulfilled. I had to say No to two men who came from outside Mbare seeking instant help. “So you want us to die?” was the reply. I found it hard to remain polite.

My great thanks to all who have come to our aid, with food and blankets. And to our Justice & Peace group who do the distribution and even accompany people going back to their rural homes on long truck journeys to different parts of the country, Tracey, Stella and Anna.

On Sunday I was in Chitungwiza and saw the home industries next to Makoni Shopping Centre destroyed which means complete ruin for hundreds of industrious people. This area, with a long durawall round it and power lines across it, was no chaotic “Siya-so”. It was built in a very orderly manner and gave room for dozens of workshops and offices. You always think you have seen it all, and then something still worse comes along. Dozens of workshops flattened – I have seen worse only after World War Two in bombed cities.

Last night Mr Kambarami, a long-time member of our parish council, always friendly an smiling, died. He had been sickly for some time. Now he succumbed. Retired from work with a small pension inflation had reduced to a mere nothing, he managed to pay his bills by letting some outbuildings to lodgers. Now these outbuildings – suddenly called “illegal structures” though half Mbare was living in such “structures” – have vanished. The last time I saw him he looked bleakly into the future and his smile had become rather thin. Most of their children have died of you know what; his widow, racked by stomach ulcer pains, will have a hard time to survive. She worries about how to pay the “penalties” of millions of dollars the City of Harare has imposed upon home owners. Why these crippling demands? “They want to deprive us of our houses,” I was told. Flat-dwellers fear they will be evicted to make room for civil servants, police and army. The residents association has advised not to pay. They want to take the matter to court. But will the courts give a fair decision? And will government abide by it? The regime uses the law as a weapon where it happens to be in its favour and ignores it when it is not. The law can no longer be relied upon. Even-handed justice gives no longer a sense of security. Nightmares have become reality: a bulldozer can drive into your living room and squash you. Total state power demonstrates to people their total insecurity and powerlessness.

The point the UN envoy must understand and put across to UN members is that the individual and his/her rights count for nothing in this country at this time. The Catholic Bishops denounced the “collective and indiscriminate punishment” as unacceptable in their first reaction to this unprecedented assault on the poor.

There are still a few culpably ignorant people – culpable because they do not want to know the truth – who argue that the objective of government in starting this campaign was good, it merely chose the wrong means.

The simple truth is: the choice of means tells you whether an action is good or bad, not the stated aim. The most evil men claim the most idealistic motives for torturing and assassinating their victims. The most glorious future does not justify the present misery. The end does Report not justify the means.

Report from Mbare 13 July 2005

I could not get into my own premises, such a throng of people jostling each other were in front of the gate. People are hungry and desperate. Were is the next meal coming from? The sick, the handicapped, the elderly may get elbowed out of the way; the bedridden may be left out altogether. Mbare has an unusually large elderly population. Leaders of our parish neighbourhood groups come with lists of people we have not been able to assist yet and tell harrowing stories of biting hunger. How do we reach them all?

A few vendors are timidly emerging again on the streets with just a few vegetables and fruits for sale, not more than they can grab and run with if the police come round the corner. You get arrested if caught vending. Most people who were self-employed or depended on income from renting out rooms are ruined. They have no chance ever to follow their trade again unless they are party supporters and are given stands at the new sites controlled by the party. People not supporting the party no longer have a right to life.

Not all who escaped the chaos in Mbare to the rural areas have been lucky. A woman who has a history of being harassed as a opposition party supporter, who had her house burnt and was beaten up, came back from a remote area to look for food: there is nothing where she went; she has been feeding her family on vegetables only.

There is no cleaning-up. There is only destruction and heaps of rubble lining certain streets and filling up empty spaces where people have dumped the debris left after ‘tsunami’. Mbare was never so ugly. That is the depressing thing: the enormous lies that are being told day in, day out. The ‘country is being cleaned up, order is restored; you are freed from crime and corruption; new houses are being built’. Truth is constantly being twisted and distorted. Which touches our very humanity. We cannot live without truth. It is part of the air we breathe. You choke on this diet of lies, you vomit when constantly fed such poison.

The boys of Hartmann House loaded our car with blankets they had brought from home for the displaced people. The students of St George’s – reputed to be interested only in cricket or rugby, far from the social reality of the country – raised $ 20 million with which we bought three bales of blankets, 60 blankets each. It is very encouraging to experience the solidarity of fellow Christians. On Monday afternoon, while watching the crowds lining up for food distribution, amidst the hustle and bustle of people shouting and arguing, crying and pleading, suddenly Cardinal Napier, archbishop of Durban, SA, appeared. I could not believe my eyes: what is he doing here? Then more clergy emerged from a mini-bus: the delegation of the SA Council of Churches was visiting Mbare. “Tell your president….,”our aid workers told the visitors. Our president never received them. It was good to experience the concern of our neighbours from down south.

Delegation of South African Council of Churches in Zimbabwe

Report to SACC Central Committee-Meeting 12 & 13 July 2005
Pastoral Visit to Zimbabwe on 10-11 July

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. PASTORAL MISSION
A delegation of South African Church Leaders accompanied by a representative of the All Africa Conference of Churches paid a pastoral visit to Zimbabwe on 10-11 July 2005. Archbishop Ndungane, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Professor Russel Botman President of the SACC led the SACC delegation. The pastoral visit was facilitated and hosted by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC).The purpose of the visit was to provide pastoral solidarity to the communities affected by the recent "Operation Murambatsvina", described by the Zimbabwe government as "Operation restore order" and the churches ministering to them. The delegation visited the Caledonia 'Transit' Camp, where displaced people have been relocated to, and visited the Mbare Township from where some of the displaced people originate.The delegation met with the Zimbabwean Church leadership, (representing the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and the Catholic Church). They were also briefed by Zimbabwe civil society organisations, including the Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions.

1.2 OBSERVATIONS AT CALEDONIA TRANSIT CAMP
The camp is located approximately 30 kilometres to the South East of Harare in the Ruwa area. The place of relocation previously served as a farm. There are no facilities' on or adjacent to the camp, other then an old farm house. The displaced people informed the delegation that they were given 30 minutes to pack their possessions after which they were loaded on trucks and dumped in the Caledonia Transit camp.The only existing shelters are plastic sheets supported by pieces of wood. The displaced persons themselves erected these inhabitable shelters. Government made little effort to provide any services other than the members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police who are managing the camp. Churches and particularly Christian Care (the service arm of ZCC) provides blankets, a few tents and food to the 4890 displaced persons. UNICEF provides water. Those displaced to Caledonia camp were told that they would be there only for five days. By the time the delegation visited the camp they had been there for a month, and were unsure of when they would move to an improved situation. The displaced are living under inhuman conditions. Scores of children, young people and unemployed parents and grandparents have to eek out a measly existence on rations supplied by foreign and local NGOs and Churches. 260 children are registered at a crèche set up in the camp. On the day that the delegation visited only 30 children turned up and because it was cloudy and cold they played inside of a building that had no room windows or a door. Street people and informal vendors are the main victims of the Operation. A considerable number are born in Zimbabwe with parents from neighbouring countries. Displaced people are, on the whole, income earners who had been supporting their families and sending their children to school. Taking away their economic productivity and reducing them to living on relief supplies has stifled their creativity. A large number of teenage mothers were seen in the camp nursing their children.

1.3 OBSERVATIONS AT MBARE TOWNSHIP
A shocking site greeted the delegation on entering Mbare Township. Almost every yard was filled with rubble from the demolition of structures. A considerable number of people who have been living in Mbare for many decades had their homes and informal business structures destroyed as part of "Operation Clean-up". Extensions were made to houses to support the extended family and in some instances to supplement old age pensions. These extensions were broken down.

The affected people sought shelter with families and friends or ended up in the transit camps. The delegation witnessed the desperate poverty of the people in Mbare Township. On visiting a Catholic Church in the township the delegation was greeted by long queues of people waiting to collect their monthly food rations. This is illustrating a looming hunger crisis in Harare.

2. STATEMENT OF THE DELEGATION
There comes a time when human suffering is indescribable. What we have seen is a small portion of the human suffering playing itself out in the townships of Harare. At such times the Christian Church and community is challenged to speak the truth in an uncompromising manner. Such times demand unity of purpose amongst churches. The cries of the affected people must be heard and seen, and the credibility of the Gospel cannot be compromised. The dignity of people who are created in the image of God must be affirmed. In this instance the affected people are the already vulnerable: self-employed, under- employed and unemployed, taking care of dependan minor children, youth and grandparents. Within no time these people have become victims of a political and economic system. Their humanity has been denied and their remaining dignity trampled upon. Their efforts to survive through informal trading have been criminalized. Many of the informal vendors were laid off from employment in the formal sector and started income generation projects.

We salute the churches in Zimbabwe for the commendable interventions they continue to make. While we continue to uphold them in prayers, we recognise that they need our practical support in resolving the causes of the problems. The church cannot sit by idly when leaders treat their people worse than animals. The situation is worsened when efforts at service delivery are restricted by political objectives. The Church of Christ cannot afford to be a silent observer when poverty and homelessness is meticulously implemented. There are sinister motives informing government action where the broad populaces are affected in townships and cities and growth points.

The pain and hurt is visible in the eyes of children and the despair of parents fuel their loss of dignity. Such observations are dominant in the camps where the relocated have been dumped. The limited chances to sustain a livelihood have been taken away from the relocated families. "Operation Restore Order" fuels serious shortages of food, and a humanitarian crisis last seen in Zimbabwe during the liberation struggle. Young people who could be agents of change may become catalyst for conflict as they are exposed to the hopelessness of their parents. Because of the stress, trauma and lack of proper nutrition, mothers are unable to breast-feed their babies. Fathers who are denied the opportunity to support their families are loitering in transit camps, consumed by boredom and despair. The deplorable health conditions have also compromised the battle against HIV and Aids and other infectious diseases.

All of this happens due to a lack of economic planning by the government. If there is any planning it is poor and inconsiderate of the people that government is meant to serve and take care of. The affected people should have been provided with alternatives that are sustainable and humane. Instead informal business people are sacrificed for the formal economy. These people are removed from opportunities to earn a living and driven to the periphery of society. This deliberate destruction of the informal economy, which is meant to cater for economicall vulnerable groups, is unparalleled in modern day Africa. The displaced are told that they must return to their rural homes. Most of these people moved to the main centres of business driven by poverty and a need to earn a living. Forcing them to return to rural areas where there are water shortages, high levels of unemployment and skills shortages is no solution. Such action is inconsiderate of its consequences and the affected people. The next harvest will only happen in eight months. Making victims of the poor and criminalizing their efforts for survival will not resolve the political and economic problems of Zimbabwe. The timing of the operation is when the Zimbabwean economy is at its worst and in the heart of winter.

It is good for 'Law & Order' to be maintained, but like the Zimbabwean Church leaders, we have a problem with the manner and methods that are inhuman. Local government and authorities are not involved in the provision of services to the relocated people. The Zim $ 3 trillion that government offers will only be able to build 3,000 (three thousand) houses. Zimbabwean churches and other service providers are placed in an invidious position. Through their humanitarian assistance they could be considered to be complicit in the suffering of the affected communities. While churches do not condone the actions of government they are obliged to provide support to the displaced people. Consistent efforts to meet with government failed to yield any results.

Churches are concerned that such transit arrangements tend to become permanent.
. There is no rationale for Zimbabweans to be internally displaced, except for the fact that people are economically driven. The delegation encourages leaders in Southern Africa to consider the threat of economic displacement in the economic models they pursue. What was\experienced by the delegation was a situation seen in Somalia. In the case of Somalia the reasons for the devastation of the livelihood of the poor was due to natural causes. However in the case of Zimbabwe the sad situation of the destruction of livelihood and family life is due to the orchestration of a government which cannot recognise that it has dumped its people into another crisis from which they will have difficulty returning.

3. THE WAY FORWARD
The delegation having had the experience of seeing the devastating poverty and turmoil in the lives of those cruelly and inhumanly displaced by the Zimbabwean government are convinced that tangible and sustainable efforts need to be put in place to save Zimbabwe's poor from complete destruction. We hereby offer the following proposals for consideration by the SACC Central Committee.

1. For the SACC to plan and execute a National Campaign of Relief.
2. To organise a solidarity letter campaign.
3. To organise a prayer campaign focusing on the plight of the Zimbabwean people.
4. Organise a Civil disobedience campaign.

Visiting Hatcliffe Extension for the second times
By Trudy Stevenson

On Friday 5 August I visited Hatcliffe Extension for the second time since the people had been allowed back to their stands in the "New Stands" area. 4000 stands have been allocated or reallocated. Many people are back, but some have not yet come, presumably because they have not been informed about the reallocation. Some are now too sick, like Mr M.. who is still in Epworth with relatives. Some have not found the money to transport their belongings back.

Very few people have been given the 4 asbestos sheets promised by Minister Muchena & co when they addressed residents 2 weeks ago. Some were promised they would be given the sheets last Monday, but so far no-one has come back to fulfil that promise. In any case, those asbestos sheets are narrower than a single bed, and scarcely longer - they cannot make a house with that! Residents are however very busy putting up their shelters with whatever they can find, and some are already making solid foundations for substantial houses. Many are living in bits of plastic and any corrugated iron etc they managed to salvage and hide before they were chased away - but at least one young mother is sleeping in the open with her baby, she doesn't even have plastic. We are asking well-wishers to please now help with plastic sheeting and building materials if at all possible. It is so tragic that all these residents had adequate, if flimsy, shelter 3 months ago, and many now cannot afford to replace even that basic shelter!

The promise of extra lessons to make up the two months of lost classes has come to nothing - there are no facilities at all for extra lessons. Many parents have opted to wait until the new term begins in September rather than wasting more school fees for just 3 or 4 days of lessons at the end of this term. However it is unclear whether Zambuko Primary School will reopen. Currently it is being vandalised, with a number of broken window panes and probably books etc from the classrooms are disappearing, if not already gone. The corrugated iron roofing on the main hall is being "helped" to come off.

The biggest shock was the Clinic, near the school, which has disappeared! It was still standing and unharmed a month ago, and we were told it would probably re-open, but only the foundations remain. Before and after photos are available on request. I am very concerned that so many efforts from churches, NGO's and individual well-wishers have been destroyed by the regime and its agents in this Operation Murambatsvina. I know that it will be extremely difficult to persuade those people and organisations to invest in the residents of Hatcliffe Extension a second time round, after this deliberate destruction. They also need major infrastructure investment in terms of boreholes and/or upgrading of the Municipality infrastructure to be able to cope with their water and sewerage requirements, etc - it is not clear what help, if anything, they will get at that level.

Meanwhile, it is still very cold at night, and many residents have lost their property one way or another in the various upheavals, so we appeal yet again for whatever you may be able to give to assist - especially building materials and plastic sheeting. Also warm clothes, blankets, children's clothes, and dry foods esp. mealie meal. Donations can be dropped directly at New Stands (opposite SIRDC and further down the hill near the contractors' site) or at St Augustine's Catholic Church in Hatcliffe One (access from Scam Way off the Borrowdale Rd before Domboshawa) or small amounts at my Parliamentary office in Mt Pleasant Hall

Trudy Stevenson is a MP of Harare North Constituency
From Dandemutande Listserve 11 August 2005

Loan from China
China - a key source of loans?

China, which has expanded business and diplomatic contacts in African trouble spots like Congo and Sudan, has not joined Western condemnation of Zimbabwe's human rights record. In fact, China has become a key source of loans and supplies for Zimbabwe. Most recently, Beijing agreed to a loan to expand a power station and to supply a third Chinese-made MA60 commercial aircraft to Zimbabwe, state media in Beijing announced Wednesday. No details of the terms were reported. Opposition leaders claim Operation Drive Out Trash is intended to break up their strongholds among the urban poor and drive their supporters into rural areas, where they can be more easily controlled by government-allied chiefs. Zimbabwe's government argues the campaign is aimed at reducing crime and restoring order in overcrowded slums and illegal markets, and has pledged to build new homes for those uprooted. But independent economists argue the government cannot afford the $325 million it has promised for reconstruction. The UN report, issued last week, says the demolitions "unleashed chaos and untold human suffering" in a country already gripped by economic crisis. In addition to those who lost homes and jobs, a further 2.4 million people have been affected by the countrywide campaign that began May 19 with little warning, the report said.

China, which has close ties to President Robert Mugabe's government, and Zimbabwe's African neighbors had managed to keep the crisis in the African nation off the council's agenda, arguing that it was not an issue of international peace and security. But with the minimum nine "yes" votes, the 15-member UN Security Council decided in a rare procedural vote Wednesday to allow Tibaijuka to brief a closed-door session on her highly criticial report. Zimbabwe's government opened the Porta Farm township in 1991, moving in thousands of people from squatter camps in Harare so Britain's Queen Elizabeth would not see them during her visit. Now, Mugabe wants to build a sewage plant there, officials say. Huts built by farmworkers also were being demolished on the outskirts of Chipinge, about 375 miles southeast of the capital, witnesses said. The workers were among 500,000 employees of whites whose farms were seized by the government. Covering the seizures and demolitions has been difficult because of desperate gasoline shortages and tough Zimbabwean media laws which prohibit reporting on stories the government believes would bring it into disrepute.

Associated Press 27 July 2005

"Not worth investing in"

As Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe returned to Harare from China at the weekend almost empty handed, SA¹s ability to extract political concessions in return for a loan increased, observers said. They said that with Mugabe in desperate need of foreign currency to pay for energy, fuel, and essential imports, SA could now put the squeeze on him to deliver his side of the deal, if South African aid is to be forthcoming. Some diplomats have said China¹s refusal to extend Mugabe¹s government more than $6m for grain imports, which Zimbabwe¹s state-owned Herald said he had been given, may be part of a co-ordinated play between SA, China and other countries to ensure the beleaguered leader has to turn to SA for help. Mugabe received minimal economic help last week, and China, Russia and Algeria tried unsuccessfully to block United Nations (UN) special envoy Anna Tibaijuka from addressing the UN Security Council about her report on Operation Murambatsvina, which says the urban clean-up campaign made 700 000 people homeless. It is understood Mugabe wants to visit SA soon to speed-up talks on a bale-out package for Zimbabwe. A number of his ministers would come to SA next week for talks, sources said.

The total assistance from China is well short of the loan SA is considering and makes a very small dent in the country¹s foreign exchange shortfall. Despite Zimbabwe¹s desperation for external financing to ease its fuel crisis, SA has given no signal that this is being considered with the urgency Harare would prefer. Last week SA helped Zimbabwe gain a reprieve from imminent expulsion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The matter will be put to the IMF¹s board on September 9. Even if Zimbabwe pays its overdue debt to the fund, it has no prospect of new IMF finance unless it embarks on an approved programme of reform. While the South African loan is earmarked for IMF repayment, the country more urgently needs money for energy, fuel, and food. President Thabo Mbeki has said SA would take ³some financial responsibility for Zimbabwe¹s IMF debt². He did not say what this would be, but indications from government were that it would be to help pay Zimbabwe¹s arrears of close to $300m. The matter has to be placed before Parliament in order for any loan to be approved.

Mugabe took a large delegation of government officials and business representatives with him to China, which has been the centre of Mugabe¹s ³look east² policy, launched after European Union and US sanctions on his government were imposed. According to the Herald, agreements were signed during Mugabe¹s China trip for a $6m grant to import grain and finance projects. China also agreed to give Zimbabwe 100 computers. Mugabe met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing last week, but a source said China had decided to give him temporary political protection, but no economic aid of substance. ³The Chinese have done their assessment and it¹s ŒMugabe, you are not worth investing in¹,² the source said. Even with the devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar¹s official exchange rate, the ability of exporters to retain foreign exchange and the move toward high interest, the Chinese did not show long-term confidence.

Business Day (SA) 1 August 2005

Loan from South Africa
"Why are we being forced to talk to them?"

Zimbabwean officials have rejected a crucial South African condition for a financial bale-out for the troubled country, saying they will not resume negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The rejection set the scene for tense talks between Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and his Zimbabwean counterpart, Herbert Murerwa, which began last night as the two men sought to work out the details of a $1bn bale-out of Zimbabwe. The Harare government¹s rejection of the conditions for the bale-out, if carried out, seems to suggest that SA and President Thabo Mbeki¹s last real chance to influence events in Zimbabwe could be in danger of evaporating, and could lead to a fundamental change in relations between the two countries. Nathan Shamuyarira, chief spokesman for the ruling Zanu PF and a confidant of President Robert Mugabe, said yesterday that Zimbabwe would not relent to pressure for a negotiated political settlement with the MDC. ³We will not have talks with the MDC. We have been saying this over and over again. Why are we being forced to talk to them? Why should they talk to us?² Shamuyarira said.

His comments echo Mugabe¹s announcement last weekend that Zimbabwe would not succumb to pressure ³from whomever² to accept talks with the MDC. Mugabe¹s angry remarks were apparently directed at Mbeki, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who want him to talk to the MDC. Last week Mbeki impressed on the nation the need to help Zimbabwe. A meltdown in the country would have disastrous effects on SA and neighbouring countries, Mbeki said. He said any assistance given to Zimbabwe must be part of a package aimed at normalising the situation in that country. On Wednesday, SA¹s cabinet approved ³in principle² the loan to Zimbabwe. Asked about last night¹s talks, SA¹s finance ministry spokesman Logan Wort said government would make an announcement only ³once the sensitive talks have been concluded². Government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said: ³We don¹t want to give running commentary (on the meeting).² SA, keen not to appear as a ³big brother², has nonetheless set strict conditions in return for the lifeline. These include a restoration of the rule of law, economic reforms, the repeal of repressive laws and, crucially, the resumption of talks with the MDC. However, Shamuyarira said there would be no multiparty talks. He said: ³Those who have been trying to promote the MDC have failed in their agenda. We are not going to talk to the MDC.

Government sources in Harare said yesterday that Mugabe had also told Zanu PF and his ministers that his government would not accept funds with strings attached. However, South African analysts said the Zimbabweans were posturing ahead of last night¹s meeting, and that it was unlikely SA would drop its conditions. Political analyst Nic Borain said: ³It¹s likely to be posturing before negotiations start. SA have the leverage as things have clearly hit rock bottom (in Zimbabwe).² Mugabe, who is expected to meet Mbeki on the sidelines of an African Union (AU) summit currently taking place in Ethiopia, has reportedly also said that SA can keep its money if it ³wanted to behave like Western countries². But pressure is mounting on Mugabe. Borain said the AU and the Southern African Development Community felt the situation in Zimbabwe had gone ³too far² and were supporting Mbeki¹s efforts to help end the crisis. At the same time, the US has stepped up pressure on Mugabe, adding 24 Zimbabwean commercial farms and two Zimbabwean companies to the list of entities now under targeted US sanctions. Zimbabwe desperately needs money to settle its $295m arrears to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which meets on September 9 to discuss its possible expulsion. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe¹s major cities continued to suffer from power cuts and chronic shortages of energy and food.

By Karima Brown, Vukani Mde and Dumisani Muley, Business Day (SA), 5 August 2005

We will sink or swim together, impatient Mbeki warns Mugabe
By David Blair, in Johannesburg

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa warned President Robert Mugabe yesterday that "we sink or swim together" and that economic collapse in Zimbabwe affected the whole region. Delivering rare words of censure to his Zimbabwean counterpart, he urged Mr Mugabe to "understand" that his actions had "an impact" on his neighbours. He has refrained from criticising Mr Mugabe in the past, arguing that he could best influence his behaviour behind the scenes. By issuing this stern public warning, he sent a strong signal that he had lost patience and that South Africa was toughening its policy towards its troublesome neighbour. The rebuke coincided with a milestone in Zimbabwe's worsening economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund will soon decide whether to cast Mr Mugabe into isolation by expelling Zimbabwe, a step not taken against any member in 50 years. A team of IMF officials arrived in Harare before a board meeting on Sept 9 that will decide Zimbabwe's future.

Mr Mugabe's regime, unable to import essential food and fuel, owes the IMF about £175 million. The country's inflation rate of 254 per cent is Africa's highest and a third of the economy has been wiped out in five years. A slump on such a scale usually occurs only in countries hit by civil war or natural disaster. Mr Mugabe has had to turn to South Africa for a rescue package. But Mr Mbeki, writing in ANC Today, the internal newsletter of the ruling African National Congress, said that "a stable and prosperous Zimbabwe is critical", adding: "All of us must understand that what we do in any one of our countries has an impact on the rest. It means that, as countries, we will sink or swim together." Talks between South Africa and Zimbabwe on a proposed rescue package have dragged on for more than a month. Mr Mbeki has agreed in principle to save Zimbabwe from expulsion from the IMF by paying off some or all of its debts to the organisation. An agreement on a loan for Zimbabwe, likely to run into hundreds of millions of pounds, is believed to have been reached by Trevor Manuel, South Africa's finance minister, and Herbert Murerwa, his Zimbabwean opposite number. But the proposed deal still needs Mr Mugabe's endorsement. South Africa is believed to have insisted on tough conditions, focusing on major economic reforms.

Aziz Pahad, South Africa's deputy foreign minister, has spoken of the danger of a "failed state on our doorstep" and has called for "fundamental changes" in Mr Mugabe's economic policies. Zimbabwe's crisis has caused millions of its citizens to flee to neighbouring countries. Official figures issued in Harare suggest that about 3.4 million people - a quarter of the population - are living abroad. Some 1.2 million have fled to South Africa, more than any other country, and Mr Mbeki fears that if the collapse continues the numbers of migrants will climb further. But Mr Mugabe is deeply reluctant to accept any conditions from abroad and has spurned calls for talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. He is pushing a series of repressive laws through parliament, including a measure that ignores reform altogether and makes the freehold ownership of land illegal.

Daily Telegraph (UK) 23 August 2005

Emigrants boost Zimbabwe's parallel economy
By Wilson Johwa

It is enough to distress any new emigrant. Sending money back home is, for many Zimbabweans working in neighbouring South Africa, a frustrating, complicated and costly exercise. The methods of choice include asking visiting friends or acquaintances to take the cash with them on their way back into Zimbabwe. Another option is having cross-border taxi drivers do it, albeit for a hefty fee. Any method will do; except transmitting money through the official bank channels. It would not be such a problem if the difference between the official
and thriving parallel market rates was less colossal. Currently, one U.S. dollar fetches 17,500 Zimbabwe dollars on the official market and almost three times that on the parallel market. "It's an absolute shortage of foreign currency," says Godfrey Kanyenze, an economist with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

The result is that even bankers, like Kenneth - a Zimbabwean teller in one of South Africa's biggest banks - shun the official channels. "I hate having to accept the much-reduced rate," he says. In the last several decades, Zimbabweans have joined other Southern Africans who went to work in South Africa's booming gold and diamond mines. But the trek to South Africa intensified with the deterioration of the Zimbabwean economy five years ago. A populist, and damaging, land-reform programme preceded three disputed elections. Resultant economic problems include a critical shortage of foreign exchange to import fuel, basic food stuffs and medicines. This, coupled with unemployment rate of 75 percent, has forced almost a quarter of the population to emigrate.

Now estimated at up to two million, Zimbabweans are the second biggest group of foreign Africans in South Africa. Some are skilled emigres. the majority, though, are economic refugees who do menial jobs such as farm or house work or waiting on tables. But, together, the money they send home is making a difference to families. "The work is not as I expected, but at least I can put something on the table every day," says 33-year-old Rebecca, a former high school teacher now working as a waitress at Johannesburg's glitzy Sandton shopping centre. Her remittance of South African Rands û sent through cross-border taxis - take care of her parents and also pays for her three children's education in "better" schools.

But Emelda has neither the time nor the sophistication Themba has. From Cape Town, almost 3,000 kilometres away from Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, the publishing executive pays for friends' and relatives' satellite TV subscriptions. He also buys - and sends - groceries together with electrical appliances and books. "I help people who cannot access foreign exchange and it is people I know and will not disappear with my money," he says. The items bought are delivered in various ways. Since there is much human traffic between the two countries, it is easy to find couriers for such things as cell phones. "For smaller items I sometimes post and the postage fees will be added on to the amount owed," Themba says.

Another method is to make a payment at one of the big department stores, sometimes asking that the goods be released at a branch closest to the border, for instance. "For larger items you can connect with truck drivers too," he says. One can also use "omalaitsha" (carry-alls). These are a new breed of van-owning entrepreneurs who make money by carting goods and groceries from Zimbabweans in South Africa to their homes, mainly in Bulawayo. For his troubles, Themba receives compensation in Zimbabwe, at a rate agreed to in advance. "They pay me by passing on the money to my folks and also for other personal business like the upkeep of my properties in Zimbabwe."

For those without the kind of network Themba runs, the only way of sending money home is by handing it over to cross-border taxi drivers. Their hub is Johannesburg's busy Park Station, the city's major bus and rail terminus where Zimbabwe-bound taxis occupy the northern corner of the upper level. Here drivers compete in attracting the attention of anyone seen as intending to send money home. It is not difficult to see why; commission is 20 percent.

In Britain, which is now home to almost a million Zimbabweans, posting money is relatively easier. That is because a throng of Zimbabwean middlemen has snapped at the business opportunity. A client deposits British pounds into the middleman's account upon agreeing on a favourable rate. In turn, the middleman deposits the money, in the intended account in Zimbabwe in local currency. This seems to work well.

In at attempt to kill the parallel market and also cash-in on the remittances, the government launched a scheme, called Homelink, which aims to offer a rate slightly better than the official rate. Zimbabwe, which faces expulsion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) due to accumulated arrears of almost 300 million U.S. dollars, is seeking an estimated one-billion-U.S.-dollar loan from the South African government. A delegation led by President Robert Mugabe has just returned from China where it managed to secure a grant of only 6 million U.S. dollars, mainly to buy food.

Inter Press Service Johannesburg 8 August 2005

Amendments to the constitution
Nationalise seized white owned farms and impose travel bans

President Robert Mugabe's ruling party pushed through amendments yesterday to Zimbabwe's constitution, paving the way for the government to nationalise seized white-owned farms and impose travel bans on "traitors". Mugabe's Zanu PF party, using the two-thirds parliamentary majority it won in disputed March elections, approved constitutional changes that also set up a second legislative chamber to be known as the senate, which critics say will be packed with Mugabe allies. Zanu PF mustered 103 votes for the amendments, with 29 parliamentarians voting "No", 28 of them from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has criticised the changes as another blow to democracy in Zimbabwe. Parliament's lone independent legislator also voted against the bill - the 17th set of changes to the country's constitution Mugabe has pushed through since independence from Britain in 1980. "This is a disastrous amendment bill," said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, which advocates a "people driven" overhaul of the constitution. "It shows how this regime continues in its intention of pulling down the country. It has no other intention except to keep this government in power."

The amendments call for seized farms to be nationalised, effectively barring white farmers from using the courts to challenge seizures that economic analysts say have ruined Zimbabwe's once-thriving agricultural sector. The amendments will also give the government new tools against its political opponents, allowing it to impose travel bans on Zimbabweans suspected of engaging in terrorist training abroad or who have called for sanctions or military actions against Mugabe's government. The MDC, which is backed by several Western countries in its charges that Zanu PF rigged the March polls, has advocated its own set of changes to Zimbabwe's constitution which would limit the tenure of a president to two terms in office and create an "independent" electoral body. The government's plan, by contrast, would set up a new senate of 65 members, of whom 50 would be elected, the rest going to traditional chiefs and presidential appointees. Mugabe's Zanu PF argues that the changes will enable the government to conclude its controversial land reforms while a senate will improve the quality of legislation.

The Cape Times (SA) 31 August 2005

Travel ban for Mugabe critics
by Caiphas Chimhete

The government, reeling from targeted sanctions imposed by the West, is drawing up a list of opposition politicians and human rights activists who will be banned from travelling abroad, sources have told The Standard.

Details of the list emerged a few days after the controversial 17th Amendment to the Constitution sailed through Parliament despite widespread criticism. The Bill, which has been described as an assault on people's democracy, would, among other things, empower the government to withdraw passports from people deemed to be "unpatriotic", rendering them unable to travel abroad and therefore alert the international community to the growing crisis in Zimbabwe.

On top of the list, the sources said, is MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Sources said Zanu PF's department of information and publicity, headed by Nathan Shamuyarira, was charged with drawing up the list. Other politicians on the list include MDC MPs such as Welshman Ncube, Job Sikhala, Trudy Stevenson, Gibson Sibanda and Sekai Holland. "The list was there already but they are just updating it to include people like Jonathan Moyo, Pearson Mbalekwa and lawyers like (Arnold) Tsunga," said the source.

Tsunga heads the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, while Mbalekwa resigned from Zanu PF in a manner that rattled the ruling party. Moyo, Mugabe's former right-hand man, was fired from the ruling party for indiscipline after he stood as an independent candidate for Tsholotsho in the 31 March polls. He is championing the establishment of a Third Force.

Other names on the travel ban include that of the director of Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa (SAHRIT) Philliat Matsheza, and National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairperson, Lovemore Madhuku. Both NCA and SAHRIT are perceived as anti-Mugabe and were candidates for closure under the non-governmental organisation Bill.

MDC spokesperson Paul Themba-Nyathi said the Bill was a satanic assault on people's rights, not only targeting MDC members but all critics of Mugabe. Just before the 31 March parliamentary elections, Zanu PF's department of information and publicity produced a booklet entitled Traitors Do Much Damage to National Goals that listed perceived enemies of the State.

The list comprises politicians, human rights activists, journalists and clergyman viewed as "traitors," dating back to the First Chimurenga. Archbishop Pius Ncube is one of the people listed in the booklet.

Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, who is one of the architects of the Bill, said all people who called for sanctions or demonised the country would have their passports withdrawn in the interests of national security. "There are people who gallivant across the globe calling for sanctions against the country. Those are the ones we are targeting. I don't want to mention names because they know themselves. If you are one of them, you are in for it," Chinamasa warned.

Zimbabwe Standard 4 September 2005

Woman of steel tells of Zimbabwean torment
By Basildon Peta

She has been tied up, beaten and humiliated, but she will not to give up the fight. On Thursday she showed the press in Johannesburg a black scar on her left eye, sustained when Zimbabwean government agents attacked her at the weekend. But she vowed in the same breath to return to Zimbabwe and confront Robert Mugabe's establishment.

"They are torturing my flesh but they cannot torture my spirit. It remains intact, always," declared 43-year-old Thabita Khumalo, the secretary of the Women's Advisory Council of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). She spoke after she had addressed the press at Cosatu House. Attacks on opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his senior party colleagues attract international headlines, but little attention is given to lesser known activists like Khumalo, who bear the scars of Mugabe's brutality.

On Saturday she was about to open a meeting of ZCTU women officials, when a group of 25 men and women stormed the venue at Harare's low-priced Quality International Hotel. They ordered the meeting closed but Khumalo refused to vacate her seat. She says they started beating the 35 women present and they all ran out, but she remained defiant in her chairperson's seat. One of the 25 aggressors shouted: "Let's kill this one, once and for all."

She says a man grabbed her by the belt and tied her hands behind her backbefore the "free-for-all" assault on her began. The scene was reminiscent of the 1998 assault on Tsvangirai, then the ZCTU general secretary, when a group of militant war veterans stormed his Harare office and beat him up before trying to throw him out of the his 10th floor office, she recalls.

Khumalo says she regained consciousness in hospital and then went to report the matter to the police. At the police station, she was told that her meeting had not been authorised in accordance with the Public Order and Security Act, which requires the government to sanction all meetings of more than five people.

Khumalo says thousands of Zimbabweans have suffered worse torture "That is where it ended," she says. But the weekend attack was not the worst for Khumalo, a single mother-of-one. In 2000, just before that year's parliamentary elections, the most violent since independence in 1980, Khumalo was kidnapped by a group of Zanu-PF youth militia members just as she prepared to leave Jerera Growth Point in Masvingo province after the conclusion of a ZCTU workshop.

Other ZCTU leaders had managed to flee in the stampede that followed. She was taken to Jerera police station, which she discovered was also being used as a base for the militias. Two days of torture and sexual abuse followed. She was later dumped at an isolated roadside, where she was helped by strangers. If Khumalo was not a woman with nerves of steel, she would have fled the country like many other Zimbabweans after state-sponsored violence had killed 200 people, mostly opposition supporters, in the run-up to the June 2000 elections.

But she carried on with her duties. More beatings and harassment were to follow as government agents pursued her at her home in Bulawayo. Before Zimbabwe's economic collapse began in earnest in February 2000, Mugabe's Zanu-PF had drawn support mostly from women. So Khumalo's open challenge of the establishment was seen as an affront to a long tradition. This year continues to be a tough one for her. Like other ZCTU leaders, she has lost her job with government-run parastatals.

She has been assaulted at all of the four general council meetings convened by the ZCTU this year, either by youth militias sent to disrupt these meetings or by a few members of the ZCTU's affiliates who sit in the general council and have been recruited by the government to hijack the powerful labour movement.

Despite her scars, Khumalo says thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans have suffered worse torture and assault at the hands of the Mugabe regime. But their suffering goes unnoticed. All she wants is a democratic Zimbabwe in which human rights are respected and workers and people can express their will without reprisals. She doesn't care who gets power in a future democratic Zimbabwe. She would be comfortable with Zanu-PF rule as long as it won fairly and upheld human rights for all.

From Action for Southern Africa, London, 15 July 2005

Facing a Zimbabwean genocide
By Kevin Engle and Gregory Stanton

"We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people." Didymus Mutasa - Zimbabwe's Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Lands Reform, and Resettlement - August 2002

Operation Murambatsvina has been, "...a long cherished desire." Robert Mugabe -
Executive President of Zimbabwe - June 2005

Like a snared animal, attacking even those who would free Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, severely injured by their own failed policies, and in a desperate attempt to hold onto power, are tearing into the flesh of Zimbabwe's own citizens. At first cloaking his ruin of Zimbabwe's economy as land reform, Mugabe has now turned on his urban poor, bulldozing hundreds of thousands of peoples' homes in the cold of winter. According to the United Nations Report on the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to Assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina, there are, "three main categories of victims - those who have lost their homes, those who lost their livelihoods, and those who lost both." There can be little doubt that this list will soon contain a fourth main category, those who have lost their lives.

Beginning officially on May 19, 2005, Operation Murambatsvina ("Operation Drive out the Filth"), having already left 700,000 homeless, and directly impacting the lives of a further 2.4 million, is simply the most recent manifestation of the Mugabe/ZANU-PF's systematic progression toward a governmental policy of overt mass murder. Make no mistake, what we are currently witnessing in Zimbabwe-even now, Operation Murambatsvina continues to unfold-constitutes nothing less than the first stages of a centrally organized program of mass murder on a scale of the genocides of Rwanda and Darfur. With a diligence akin to that of Hitler's Germany, where valuable resources were diverted from the war effort-even as the Eastern Front collapsed under the onslaught of the Red Army-in order that the trains could continue to transport their pitiful cargos to the death camps, the Mugabe regime squanders what few assets it is still able to squeeze out of the freefalling Zimbabwean economy, to fuel a policy that aims at the elimination of all potential opposition, an opposition that Augustine Chihuri, the Zimbabwean Police Commissioner, has described as a, "crawling mass of maggots bent on destroying the economy." Use of such dehumanizing language is one of the surest early warning signs of genocide.

The Devil is in the Details

Genocide is a process and not an event. The Mugabe regime has committed genocide before, and it has now begun the genocidal process again. In October 1980, when then Prime Minister Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President, Kim Il Sung, providing that the North Korean communists would train what was to become the elite "5 Brigade" of the Zimbabwean army, he launched an intentional, organized process of genocide. 5 Brigade, comprised largely of Shona-speaking members of the armed wing of what is now the ZANU-PF, and organized along the lines of Hitler's SS-standing outside of the army chain of command, and answering only to Mugabe himself-unleashed the Gukurahundi ("the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains"), the regime's first, and still unpunished, genocide.

While an accurate death toll for the Gukurahundi is all but impossible to ascertain, with thousands of bodies disposed of in mass graves and thrown down abandoned mine shafts, it is estimated that at least 20,000 people were murdered by members of 5 Brigade, the ZANU-PF Youth Militia, the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), and the Police Internal Security Intelligence Unit (PISI), all active participants in the killings. What is known, and documented, about the Gukurahundi, is that it constituted the Mugabe regime's first overt use of food as a weapon of suppression, with over 400,000 Zimbabwean citizens driven to the brink of starvation before 5 Brigade was withdrawn and disbanded in 1986. The Gukurahundi, while mainly about consolidation of raw political power, the establishment of a one-party, Mugabe/ZANU-PF led government, and the suppression of any opposition-by whatever means necessary-was also genocide. Its' victims were almost exclusively Matabele.

Having ruthlessly acted to cripple those he saw as threatening the ZANU-PF government in the 1980's, Mugabe turned to consolidation of his political power by co-opting Zimbabwe's parliamentary democracy, and its' judiciary, hoping to turn both into rubberstamps for his dictatorship. Mugabe was shocked when in the Referendum of February 2000, a majority of those Zimbabweans who voted rejected proposed constitutional changes designed to strengthen the powers of the executive presidency. Mugabe's ZANU-PF reacted with a second violent and coordinated attack on those perceived as threatening its grip on power, the political opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Zimbabwe's commercial farming sector. The ZANU-PF Youth Militias, nicknamed the "Green Bombers," have been re-constituted, with Shona ethnic indoctrination and lethal armament.

Now, Mugabe's assault on the Zimbabwean people, again utilizing the same tools of intimidation, torture, murder, and terror that were so viciously applied during the Gukurahundi, has escalated into Operation Murambatsvina. No longer content to control and suppress its' political opposition, the Mugabe/ZANU-PF regime has implemented a systematic policy of forced relocation and mass murder by attrition. It is winter in the southern hemisphere. Mugabe's policy of murder by homelessness, neglect, and starvation has been organized at the highest levels of government. It constitutes a crime against humanity as defined by international law.

Action not Discussion

As with Sudan and Niger, discussions about the situation in Zimbabwe have been taking place within the international community's halls of power. The UN has compiled a damning report, the US and UK, in concert with other nations, have called on the Mugabe regime to cease and desist, while NGOs around the world have identified the specific steps that can be taken to end this grave humanitarian crisis. Yet the power elite in Zimbabwe have shown open contempt at demands that it end Operation Murambatsvina, a program of destruction that Mugabe cynically claims is meant to "bring joy to the people."

Given Mugabe's evident refusal to end the policies that will lead to the extermination, by attrition, of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean citizens, the time for discussion and hand wringing has passed. Now it is time for those nations with the moral will, and the necessary resources, to act decisively - either with, or without, the approval of Mugabe, the ZANU-PF, or this criminal regime's apologists.

Facing a Zimbabwean Genocide

Mugabe has been called upon to take measured, reasonable, and responsible steps to end the humanitarian crisis caused by Operation Murambatsvina - he has refused. Mugabe has been offered humanitarian support if only he agrees to allow independent, international aid agencies to distribute assistance to those in the most dire straits, free from the corrupt influence of the ZANU-PF and its self-serving functionaries - he has refused. Mugabe has been offered a desperately needed influx of foreign exchange credits, if only he agrees to enter into talks with the MDC - he has refused.

Mugabe has been called upon to provide international access to assist the hundreds of thousands of now homeless and hopeless victims of his brutal campaign of "urban cleansing" - he has refused. In fact, Mugabe has even gone so far as to deny that these victims exist, commenting to reporters on the subject when in Libya for the recent African Union (AU) summit: "Where are they? We don't know about those. It's just nonsense." Mugabe and the ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe must not be given yet another opportunity that they can refuse!

Never Again or Again and Again?

What remains is for the world's governments to decide whether they want to look back on this time in pride at having acted to avert another humanitarian disaster, a "tsunami," as its victims have named it, a program of mass murder, to call it what it is, or in shame, at their collective complicity in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

The dying has already begun in Zimbabwe. Will the "Never again," invoked piously after Rwanda, again translate into "again and again?" As Judith Todd, the Zimbabwean human rights activist observed in June 2005, "If, in bitter winter, you deprive people and their children of shelter, and thus also their food and clothing and warmth; if you deprive them of their tools of trade and their means of survival, you do this for one reason only; you intend them to die....The regime will not stop with what we know so far of Operation Murambatsvina. They will not stop until they are stopped!"

Kevin Engle, an independent researcher, has lived in Zimbabwe. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch and James Farmer, Professor of Human Rights at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia, has conducted genocide prevention training in Zimbabwe. From Catholic Institute for International Relations 6 September 2005