As South Africa was announcing a partial finance rescue package for Zimbabwe on Wednesday, President Robert Mugabe instructed his Zanu-PF politburo to extend Operation Murambatsvina to urban suburbs. Mugabe accused his local government and security arms of ”hypocrisy” for halting the demolitions.
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo had called off the operation in low-density suburbs last month and gave residents a 10-day reprieve to regularise structures.
Most government ministers and MPs live in the suburbs. The police and intelligence had tipped off Mugabe that politicians had built unauthorised structures on their properties, and some were even farming with pigs in residential areas. ”Why are you not destroying your own structures,” Mugabe is alleged to have charged. ”We must not be seen to be discriminatory, we are a party for the poor, not the rich. We must have the guts to deal with all sections of society equally.”
Sources who attended the politburo briefing on Wednesday told the Mail & Guardian that Zanu-PF members were astonished by Mugabe’s tirade. ”Nobody responded. No one would certainly agree with him in light of the worldwide condemnation of the manner in which the operation was carried out in the first place.”
Mugabe left the meeting early to travel to an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa on United Nations reform.
A visibly rattled Chombo then reportedly sought the politburo’s sanction for the army, police and other government agencies to be deployed to the reconstruction of houses in informal settlements. Concerns were raised that those earmarked for the houses would be unable to afford the monthly rent payments, given the high rate of unemployment. But Chombo’s bigger headache, sources say, will be ”revisiting the demolitions in urban areas or risk the wrath of Mugabe when he returns”.
It’s also understood that Mugabe was keen to stall United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s envisaged visit to the country. And, for once, there appears to be a convergence with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who told the M&G shortly after his acquittal on a second treason charge, ”I don’t think it’s appropriate for Annan to come to Zimbabwe when he has already sent a mission.” He was, however, at odds with continued statements that historical imbalances were to blame for the country’s economic meltdown. ”My goodness, let’s be realistic, 25 years after independence is a long time to still make excuses of colonialism. It’s all about a failed leadership. When you have three to four million of your own citizens running away from political and economic hardships, you cannot blame colonialism.”
Annan described the situation in Zimbabwe as ”profoundly distressing” and urged that humanitarian relief to the country’s destitute be expedited.
The South African government too, in announcing its readiness to extend up to $150-million to help ease its neighbour’s debt woes, rallied behind the South African Council of Churches’s Operation Hope, which this week delivered 6 000 blankets and 37 tonnes of food to destitute Zimbabweans.
But their efforts have been ridiculed as pushing a political agenda in the guise of aid. Zimbabwe Minister of State Security Didymus Mutasa told ZimOnline: ”Surely we are not going to stop them … but they will not find any victims of Operation Murambatsvina.”
This week, South Africa insisted that any assistance rendered to Zimbabwe should benefit ordinary Zimbabweans. The government will, however, come under scrutiny to ensure that any economic bail-out is accompanied by political reforms, including talks between Zanu-PF and the MDC and the scrapping of repressive laws that inhibit freedom of association and expression.