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Murambatsvina victims’ decade of nightmare, desolation

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Families displaced during the 2005 Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order are still wallowing in poverty, without decent shelter.

Families displaced during the 2005 Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order are still wallowing in poverty, without decent shelter eight years after government destroyed their homes.

BLESSED MHLANGA

The government-sponsored operation — which according to the United Nations displaced 700 000 families and brought untold suffering — was condemned by human rights organisations worldwide.

Some of these families now live at a squatter camp known as Plot B in Amaveni — also referred to as Chiundura B in Kwekwe’s ward 10. More than 58 families with an average of seven members each have been staying in the makeshift zinc and clay houses for close to a decade.

The majority of people in this desolate settlement have no jobs or any other source of income and most of them cannot send their children to school. Appeals for government assistance have so far fallen on deaf ears and the people have lost hope of any help coming from anywhere.

Levison Zimba, who has been staying in the camp since 1993 with his parents and has since put up what he thinks passes for decent accommodation, says life at the camp has been rough.

Soldiers, police and Zanu PF activists are said to be targeting residents of this compound because, being victims of a Zanu PF government operation, they are believed to be disgruntled and therefore anti–government and Zanu PF.

Their original homes were reportedly razed down by soldiers on government instruction after they were deemed illegal settlers way back in 2003.

“The soldiers came here with guns and earth-moving machinery to destroy our homes and they bundled us into their trucks before dumping us at the main interchange bus terminus with orders that we should go back to our rural homes,” said Zimba.

Zimba, like many others resident at Chiundura B who for many years have been referred to by government as aliens, has no rural home to go to and as soon as the army left they went back to pick up the pieces.

“The rebuilding was not easy, but we did manage and just after we had finished rebuilding we were again hit by Operation Murambatsvina in 2005,” he said with tears welling up in his eyes.

Most children of school-going age don’t attend school because their jobless parents cannot afford school fees. They are already struggling to feed them.

Illeen Sibanda, a mother of two who also stays at the camp with her 62-year-old blind mother, says the Zanu PF government has routinely victimised them for allegedly being sympathetic to the MDC.

“We have failed to access government support on anything. It is like we come from a different planet because no matter how hard we have tried to knock on government’s door, we get shut out. Maybe it’s because we have been accused of being MDC,” she said.

The residents of Chiundura B said they were assisted by non-governmental organisations such as the World Food Programme which provided them with food handouts and others that have assisted them with sanitary facilities such as blair toilets and sometimes cash handouts.

“They would give us $20 per month which money we used to fend for ourselves since most of us here did not go to school and, therefore, cannot get even the most menial of jobs,” Zimba said.

While Chiundura B residents cry out for decent homes, there are scores of new, but incomplete government houses that are not occupied some 15km away in what was supposed to be Mbizo 21. The houses were constructed by government as it tried to fend off worldwide criticism and set up the programme Operations Garikai (Operation Restore Hope).

The houses, which were commissioned by Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo and then executive mayor Stanford Bonyongwa in 2003, were never officially handed over to the victims of Operation Murambatsvina.

They were simply abandoned until they were vandalised and reduced to inhabitable shells by thieves who stripped the structures of asbestos and other building material for sale. Most of the people here survive on illegal gold panning or working as domestic servants.

The residents said they at one time formed a committee which approached the then district administrator (DA), Tenpecent Mutikizizi, to ask for land which they could be relocated to, but their efforts yielded no fruit.

“This government is not sensitive to the people. Their interests are self-enrichment. Our efforts to have land allocated to us through the DA’s office have fallen on deaf ears,” said Philiomon Bhila, who was the chairman of the committee.

Councillor Aaron Gwalazimba said he was aware of the homeless people in his ward, but with council out of serviced stands and after disposing most of council-owned homes there was nothing council could do to help.

“This case needs government intervention because as a local authority we don’t have resources to resettle 58 families. It is, however, sad that some people have four to five farms each and yet an entire community is homeless, without anywhere to call home,” he said.

Residents of this squatter camp have also been subjected to political violence because they are perceived to be supporters of the MDC-T. Most of the youths in this area are accused of campaigning for that party.

According to Sibanda, one Langton Sithole was kidnapped from his home in 2003 and was beaten to death before his body was dumped at a dumpsite in Amaveni.

“He was found dead after a midnight kidnapping and nobody really knows what happened because police are not really interested in our welfare here,” Sibanda claimed. “People here are just numbers. We are not treated as human being.”

Dzingai said the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) saved them from the constant police harassment, especially at its formative stages when the coalition brought hope that the national economy would be back on its feet, bring back jobs and livelihoods.

This, however, did not last after bickering and policy conflict turned that hope into desolation.

“If you ask anyone here you will be told that this government cannot help us. Everybody is now waiting for July 31 when another round of elections comes. We are all banking on that election to bring change to our hopeless and desolate lives. We all hope our children will have food on the table and they will also be able to go to school,” he said.

In Redcliff, another group of homeless people dumped after the 2005 Operation Murambatsvina are, like their counterparts in Amaveni, also struggling to make ends meet. Their story reads sadly identical to that of the squatters of Amaveni.

The difference, however, is that the Redcliff “destitutes” have been spared harassment by State machinery in the belief that they are Zanu PF supporters.