Mugabe defends ruthless crackdown on urban 'trash'
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe defended the eviction of tens of thousands of informal traders and shack dwellers from city streets as a clean-up drive, and a two-day strike against the campaign got off to a slow start.
Many roads were quieter than usual in the capital, Harare, and other major centres yesterday. But banks, schools, shops and most other businesses were open as Zimbabweans apparently heeded police warnings not to participate in the protest.
In an address to Parliament, Mugabe called the three-week blitz “a vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity” in urban areas.
“The current chaotic state of affairs where (small and medium enterprises) operated … in undesignated and crime-ridden areas could not be countenanced for much longer,” Mugabe told legislators at the opening of Parliament.
Opposition lawmakers have called the campaign a strike on their urban support base and boycotted the session in protest.
Police using torches, sledgehammers and bulldozers have burned down homes and kiosks in shantytowns around the country since launching the campaign dubbed Operation Murambatsvina, or “drive out trash”, last month.
A broad alliance of civic groups, churches, opposition parties and trade unions called the strike yesterday and today to protest the drive, which UN officials say has left at least 200,000 urban poor homeless. More than 30,000 people have been arrested, according to police.
Lovemore Madhuku, a spokesman for the recently formed Broad Alliance, which organised the protest, blamed poor participation on a climate of fear.
Economists also noted it would be difficult to mount an effective general strike with only about 800,000 of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people in formal sector jobs.
Police had warned for days they would “deal ruthlessly” with anyone participating in the strike. Paramilitary officers in riot gear deployed in Harare, sealing off a large part of downtown ahead of Mugabe’s speech and causing major traffic jams.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions said three of its members were arrested at their homes before dawn yesterday for allegedly organising the strike in the second city of Bulawayo. But there were no reports of violence.
Mugabe’s government says its campaign is aimed at cleaning up cities and cracking down on black market traders it accuses of sabotaging the economy, marked by five years of unprecedented decline.
