Zimbabwe police force thousands to raze homes

The Zimbabwean Government has imposed dramatic price increases for staple foods after a week-long clampdown on Zimbabwe's street traders and urban poor apparently intended to head off mass protests.

Yesterday's price hikes - 51 per cent for maize meal and 29 per cent for bread - came a few days before a meeting with UN envoy James Morris, head of the World Food Program, to discuss Zimbabwe's massive food aid needs despite its longstanding claim to be self-sufficient.

With the economy in free-fall and inflation at dizzying levels, the price increases announced on state radio will plunge the population further into misery.

Last week police in Zimbabwe's capital forced thousands of slum dwellers to demolish their homes after the Government said their shacks were illegal.

Witnesses described chaos in Harare as riot police surrounded burning shacks and forced people to break up their own bricks. Some of the newly homeless huddled in the rubble with the few belongings they could salvage.

Officials of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party dubbed the campaign Operation Restore Order, describing it as a city "clean-up" following recent elections, which were condemned by the international community as unfair. But others said it was retribution against the urban poor, who voted overwhelmingly for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

"People were tired and confused," said Trudy Stevenson, an MDC official in northern Harare.

"They were saying 'What are we going to do?' A lot were saying, 'Now we see the Government is cruel.' There were children standing among their belongings looking very confused."

The demolitions began on Thursday evening, when more than 3000 police were deployed to evict people from their shacks.

The displaced people were to be taken outside Harare, but many were spending their second night in the open on Friday, with winter just a few days away. More operations are planned in coming days.

MDC activist Tonderai Ndira, 28, from northern Harare, said he saw police beating dozens of people as they resisted the shack demolitions in the Kudzawana district.

"Police were burning the houses. People were angry. They were retaliating and throwing stones at the police," he said.

The demolition of the homes follows last week's crackdown on Harare's thriving blackmarket. Police surrounded street traders, burned or bulldozed their stalls, destroyed their goods and arrested thousands.

The crackdown comes amid severe food and petrol shortages across the country after the almost total failure of this year's harvest due to drought and controversial agricultural policies.

- Reuters, Los Angeles Times