Inadequate Housing Plagues Murambatsvina Victims

In 2005, in the middle of winter, Mugabe ordered the destruction of what he deemed 'illegal' homes around Zimbabwe, displacing over one million people. The majority of people affected by the operation are still without adequate housing.

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Mugabe castigated the United Nations when they displayed a model house for the victims of Murambatsvina, saying that the house was substandard for Africa. The United Nations then withdrew from the intended rehousing.

Five years later, Operation Garakai, which was supposed to rehouse those without homes, has been a huge failure.

Once again, Mugabe's knee jerk reaction to receiving help from others has blighted the advancement of standard of life in Zimbabwe.... and don't forget he wants these people's vote - and, if he can't get it, he will take it...

"In Hopley Farm, a resettlement camp about 10km south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Simon Dhewa's chicken coup has been converted into a bedroom for his three daughters, the eldest of which also uses it as a venue for her commercial sex activities.

The 20-year-old is the sole bread winner for her 45-year-old widowed father, her two sisters and two brothers. The residents of Hopley Farm have nicknamed her "chicken".

Her predicament can be traced back to 2005, when President Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF government launched Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out Filth), and the family dwelling, along with her father's shoe repair business, was among the tens of thousands of urban structures that were demolished.

"I never imagined I would get into prostitution, and I never thought I would come to an extent whereby I would expose my sisters (aged 15 and 17) to this kind of life, but circumstances have forced me into this and I am now used to it," she told IRIN.

"My younger sisters dropped out of school because father could not afford the fees, and even though I wish the best in life for them, they might end up as sex workers like me so as to survive," she said.

Dhewa is aware of his daughter's sex work but told IRIN: "What can I do about it? I am not employed and she buys food for me. This is the kind of situation the government has put us into, and it is sad that there is nothing our political leaders are doing to give us decent accommodation."

There are those of us who believe that Murambatsvina was, in actual fact, a political move in an attempt to break a conclave of perceived MDC support. The apparent failure of his subsequent Operation Garakai in light of his rejection of the United Nations' attempt to assist with housing, seems to confirm that he and his party never intended to do anything to rectify the situation.

And the handing of the badly built replacement houses to ZANU PF family members didn't help things - and those houses have now been abandoned as they do not have adequate water service or connection to the sewers, to say nothing of electricity supply.

When Mugabe's own reject his government's attempts to supply them with adequate housing, then we must be aware that the problem is deeply seeded.

"An estimated 700,000 people were made homeless by Operation Murambatsvina; after international condemnation, Mugabe's government launched Operation Garikai (Have Decent Accommodation).

Dhewa's nephew, Timothy Mangena, 33, a Harare shop assistant, his wife and two children, who were made homeless by the operation that government termed "an urban clean-up", became beneficiaries of the new housing scheme.

Mangena and his family, along with several thousand others, were resettled at Whitecliff, about 15km west of Harare - one of the scores of settlements set up by Operation Garikai - where they were allocated two-roomed matchbox brick houses without toilets, running water or sewerage.

"My family had become accustomed to the pathetic conditions under which we lived but, unfortunately, I was evicted from the house by ZANU PF militia in 2008 - ahead of the June presidential elections - who accused me of supporting the opposition (Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)," Mangena told IRIN."

Obviously ZANU PF is going to make as much of the disturbance and housing shortage as possible in an operation that is bent showing MDC supporters that their lives can be so much better without the MDC.

"I have moved from one suburb to another, where landlords have evicted me for failure to pay rent and now it seems I am back where I was in 2008, as a squatter," Mangena said.

Unable to find a place to stay, he moved to Hopley Farm. His wife left him and took their children.

"My uncle (Dhewa) has given me temporary shelter in his shack at Hopley, and even though there are too many people at his house, I don't have a choice," he said.

"It is very difficult to imagine that poor people like me will ever own a house."

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man