Police evictions leave thousands homeless

Police evictions leave thousands homeless

• Murambatsvina? Zanu PF? You're having a laugh!

• Riots on Zimbabwe streets

• 'Within hours, whole livelihoods were destroyed'

• 1 million squatters targeted for eviction

• Over 100 minibuses seized in police blitz

• Zim bids to choke black market economy

• Police blitz on flea markets nets 9600 traders

• Harare residents can't quench their thirst

• Price of bread up as shortages persist

• Bread prices up 50 percent

• Zim officials break ranks on food crisis

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S security services on Thursday began the demolition of houses and shacks on the outskirts of the capital Harare as a campaign against "illegal activities" intensified.

Police arrested another 7 650 people as part of a countrywide campaign code named 'Murambatsvina' or 'Restore Order', state radio reported.

On Thursday night, thousands of squatters were forced out of their homes in Hatcliffe. According to some affected families, police said they would be resettled on farms. No further details were given.

Many were resigned to sleeping in the open, while others waited on a court challenge that was expected to be filed on Friday morning.

"The Harare City Council says it has nothing to do with these evictions," a Hatcliffe resident who identified himself as Chatora told Afro Sounds' Zimbabwe Today programme Thursday night. "They are evicting everyone, even Zanu PF activists are caught up and they are also dismayed."

Most families who settled in Hatcliffe were moved from Churu farm in 1993, at the instigation of Nyasha Chikwinya to gain political capital. Chikwinya is a former Zanu PF MP.

"Chikwinya and Chombo (Ignatious, Housing Minister) told us we could stay, and we were made to pay $100 000 for the stands. We all received lease agreements and we assumed we were here legally," another resident Jeremiah Nyirenda said by telephone from Harare.

The MDC MP for the area Trudy Stevenson last night sent an SOS message and was expected to engage lawyers to challenge the evictions. Some residents blamed her for inactivity.

Zimbabwe's state radio report said 7 650 people were arrested in the central city of Gweru, 270km south of the capital Harare, for offences including "gold panning, hoarding and overcharging of basic commodities as well as illegal foreign currency dealing".

The arrests bring to more than 17 000 the total number of people arrested in the country in just over a week since the launch of a police crackdown dubbed "Operation Restore Order".

Some of those arrested in Gweru paid fines, while others had been taken to court, the radio said.

Earlier on Thursday police warned Harare residents not to fight back against the ongoing campaign, a day after the stiffest resistance yet to the operation.

On Wednesday angry residents and traders in the poor district of Glen View went on the rampage, stoning riot police who had torched a popular marketplace.

A supermarket and several shops were looted, while a council building and a state-run bus were damaged in the fray, the State-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Thursday.

Zimbabwe has been in the grip of chronic shortages of basic commodities like sugar, fuel and the staple mealie meal since parliamentary elections on March 31 won by President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.

The government accuses Zimbabwe's massive informal sector, which has burgeoned in recent years due to spiralling unemployment, of fuelling the black market in scarce goods.

Critics of the clean-up campaign have accused the police force of trampling on the rights of citizens, many of whom are said to be licensed traders trying to make an honest living.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claims the police action is aimed at punishing its urban supporters. - Sapa-dpa
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