The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Mbare Report, No 12, 27 June
2005,
DISCARDED PEOPLE
“Patsika” seems a rubbish dump. Piles of rubbish are burning, and a thick cloud of acrid smoke hangs over the area. But this is where people from “Joburg lines” in Mbare live, camping out during these cold nights. Among them is a terminally ill woman. She put up a few bits of plastic and cardboard to protect herself from the cold wind. She used to live with her two small children at her sister’s place until the little cottage she was allowed to use was demolished. Her sister’s husband, unlike many other homeowners who have received displaced relatives in their houses, refuses to let her or her children stay in his house so his wife could look after them.
Three little children, a boy of eight and his two younger sisters of five and three, were brought by concerned members of our parish to the church. They had been staying in the open at a very dirty place in the middle of puddles of sewage. Their mother abandoned them for reasons we don’t quite know, the father, a Mozambiquan, was picked up by police and taken to the holding camp at Caledonia Farm. He escaped and came back, only to be taken forcibly to that place a second time.
Mr and Mrs Chibango are both unemployed, but they managed to earn a living by being self-employed traders and caterers. All this has been destroyed. They ask for food relief to feed their family of three.
We are trying to feed the displaced people staying in the open and give them blankets and plastic sheeting. Are we to feed all the others rendered destitute as well? How long can we do this? What is going to be the outcome?
What has to happen for the African Union and the rest of the world to sit up and take notice of how a government is torturing the common people?
This week we start to transport people to their rural homes. Only those who really want to go. Some people say we should not do this, we were doing the dirty work for government. I think we have to do what the people ask us to do. Those who have no longer strong roots at home should not attempt to go. They might be turned back, different arms of government playing football with them. Many others, aliens and children of aliens, have no rural home anyway. They have been written off as no longer deserving a place in this country. They are told to go away, vanish into nothingness. Discarded people, no longer wanted. Do they now need government permission to exist, to breathe the air God gives for free to all humans, to move and go about their business? Is this government almighty and its people powerless?
Those who do go home may at least find shelter with parents or brothers and sisters. But how will they make a living? The rural areas are drought-stricken and without sufficient food. Many children will have their education interrupted.
I was chatting to a mechanic on a repair job at my place, apparently quite a smart young man. “Oh, he is being misled by bad advisers surrounding him,” he said. Propaganda is having its effect on the people. How can intelligent people be content with such stupidities? I think the old women who whisper something about the high and mighty being obsessed by an evil spirit are closer to the truth.
Oskar Wermter SJ
----- Original Message -----From: oskar wermterSent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 3:49 PMSubject: Mbare Report 11Mbare Report, No 11, 21 June 2005,
NOWHERE TO GO
Police are prodding the “discarded people” of Mbare into moving out. Whereto? No one knows. Council officials make people pay huge fines for not removing the rubble left after razing their houses to the ground or for leaving the slabs intact. (Nobody fines council officials for not providing refuse collection in the area).
Forget the idea that you can make the people ‘up top’ see sense so they control their “overenthusiastic” staff on the ground. There is no sense in all this. It is profoundly immoral and irrational, it is evil and perverse.
Two women stood at my doorsteps early in the morning. They had missed the distribution of food stuffs yesterday afternoon when over ninety families benefitted. One was an expecting mother. She too had slept in the open in this very freezing night when even those of us who have cosy beds felt the cold. Helping with food and blankets is comparatively easy. This morning I had a number of very kind offers from various people wishing to help which was very encouraging.
The problem I cannot solve is that people just do not know where to go and find proper shelter. A woman who stays with her children in our garage found a room somewhere for $ 1 million. “To buy?” someone asked. “No, to rent, per month”. Even if I found this money now, what about the future? The destruction of a large percentage of low-cost housing in Mbare and elsewhere was an enormous economic folly. Or was it deliberate and is there something more sinister behind it? Is this how they try to subjugate the common people to the party and its total power? At any rate, the rents have gone through the roof and are unaffordable to unemployed people deprived of their self-employment.
Many hard-working people, especially women looking after families, have been turned overnight into beggars. Even if we could throw a lot of money at them we cannot support an entire population. We hear so much about “national sovereignty”. Is our beggardom what they mean by sovereignty?
Freedom, especially freedom of expression, is not a luxury developing countries cannot afford as has been suggested. It is a vital necessity for our survival. If this project of “Murambatsvina- removal of dirt (or is it people?)” had been debated in public even bright school children could have told us that it is foolish to tear down “informal” houses before building proper houses for people to move into. But leave it all to one single brain and the result is as you can see.
I would like to give shelter to even more people. But I can never take all. Some will remain outside in the cold. They may become jealous. Some will not want to leave their furniture and household goods unguarded. There are no easy answers to an impossible question.
Oskar Wermter SJ
Fr Oskar Wermter SJ
JESUIT COMMUNICATIONS
P O Box ST 194 Southerton Harare Zimbabwe
office: 1 Churchill Avenue Alexandra Park Harare
Tel. : 263-4-744571, 744288, 011-419453
Fax : 263-4-744284
e-mail: owermter@zol.co.zw,
website: www.jescom.co.zw
home: St Peter Claver Catholic Church, Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel & Fax: 263-4-661117 (756096)----- Original Message -----From: oskar wermterSent: Monday, June 20, 2005 12:36 PMSubject: Mbare Report 10Mbare Report No 10, 20 June 2005,
On Sunday Archbishop Robert Ndlovu came to give Confirmation to 160 members of our parish. His homily was a comfort (and a challenge) to me. He said, speaking in Shona, “Christ is not far from us. He is present in the person made homeless when his/her house or shack was destroyed. He is present in everyone shivering through these cold nights, sleeping out in the open. He is present in all who are hungry and destitute.” – Addressing later the parish leaders he added, “Don’t think that God does not see what is going on here. When Pharao oppressed the people of Israel in Egypt, he heard their cry.”
Our archbishop speaks in a quiet tone, without much rhetoric or drama. But his words, mostly in biblical language, are clear and understood.
In the meantime our Bishops have spoken a second time condemning the war on the poor waged by the regime on the poor and powerless:
“Any claim to justify this operation in view of a desired orderly end becomes totally groundless in view of the cruel and inhumane means that have been used. People have a right to shelter and that has been deliberately destroyed in this operation without much warning.”
A widow with three children who earns her living by sewing and selling things comes with a demand from the City of Harare to pay $ 500 000 for changing ownership of her property from her late mother to her; unless this is done soon she may lose her home.
Another one must raise $ 700 000 to install a new water meter and pay more than 2 million for backdated rates and especially for “penalties” ( unexplained what for).
A woman who made a living out of selling paraffin lost all her supplies when the police raided her house. She is left destitute. She used to be even able to give some of her time to voluntary work for an AIDS charity. Now she is in need of charity herself.
All these people and many more come to the priest in the hope he can somehow solve their problems. But he can’t. Even if he dished out all the cash he can lay his hands on, what about next month and the one after? Almost everybody has been ruined. Industrious people who looked after themselves are now in need of hand-outs. This is degrading and dehumanising.
A man’s home, however small and miserable, is his outer shell, it is part of himself. A woman’s home (housewife, homemaker) is her life. If you destroy a home, you are assaulting the owner, his/her very person. This has happened thousands of times in the last few weeks, is still happening daily, hourly.
Many young families found shelter in rented cottages, now destroyed. They all have to run back to their parents and ask to be accommodated, most humiliating for young people who have just set out in life on their own. Small family houses become overcrowded with two generations; the ensuing stress and strain does great harm to married and family life.
And there is talk that another campaign will soon be started “Murivangani?/How many are you?” when “superfluous” people w ill be thrown out, like rubbish on the rubbish dump.
Why? Why? Why? People are asking. Why this insanity?
Oskar Wermter SJ
Fr Oskar Wermter SJ
JESUIT COMMUNICATIONS
P O Box ST 194 Southerton Harare Zimbabwe
office: 1 Churchill Avenue Alexandra Park Harare
Tel. : 263-4-744571, 744288, 011-419453
Fax : 263-4-744284
e-mail: owermter@zol.co.zw,
website: www.jescom.co.zw
home: St Peter Claver Catholic Church, Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel & Fax: 263-4-661117 (756096)----- Original Message -----Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 3:41 PMMbare Report No 6, 8 June 2005
Mbare Parish is distributing food, donated by a concerned organisation, to the homeless, still sleeping on the streets, but huge crowds are overwhelming the priest and his helper, the assistant for social and charitable work in the parish.
A woman rendered homeless by “Murambatsvina” ('doing away with the dirt' campaign) has taken refuge with a relation in Rugare, her very sick husband – you guess what disease! - is in Epworth, her three children are staying with other relations in Dzivaresekwa, but they should be in school in Mbare. This madness is not just destroying houses, it is destroying homes and families.
Three women with between them eleven children, all of them of Malawian origin, are still sleeping in the open, next to Stoddard Hall. They have absolutely nowhere to go. I told them they could come to the Church to use the toilets and shower facilities and fetch water. They were in the crowd queuing for food at Old St Peter’s.
Could we get tents and give people some shelter that way? All people in Mbare I mentioned this idea to were unanimous: the police will not allow it.
A children’s home in the suburbs was visited this morning: we are going to come and destroy your chicken run and green house (part of a thriving self-help scheme). The director is now frantrically trying to mobilize support against the destruction.
I visited an old couple. He is sickly and frail. They used to pay their electricity bill, water, rates etc from the income they got from renting out a couple of rooms to lodgers. These rooms are no longer there. They have been flattened. There is only the rubble left. It is sickening.
Oskar Wermter SJ
Fr Oskar Wermter SJ
JESUIT COMMUNICATIONS
P O Box ST 194 Southerton Harare Zimbabwe
office: 1 Churchill Avenue Alexandra Park Harare
Tel. : 263-4-744571, 744288, 011-419453
Fax : 263-4-744284
e-mail: owermter@zol.co.zw,
website: www.jescom.co.zw
home: St Peter Claver Catholic Church, Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel & Fax: 263-4-661117 (756096)
HARARE – An unbudgeted $3 trillion (about US$300 million) housing project announced at the weekend by Harare, desperate to quell international outrage against its urban clean-up campaign, will plunge Zimbabwe’s economy deeper into crisis, according to analysts. Harare, roundly condemned by the United Nations, European Union, United States, Zimbabwean and international human rights groups for violating the rights of poor families evicted en masse during the clean-up drive, announced at the weekend that it was immediately unrolling a massive housing programme. Under the ambitious programme, announced as UN special envoy Anna Tibaijuka began touring Zimbabwe to assess the impact of the mass evictions, thousands of houses will be built before August this year to ensure shelter for evicted families before the onset of the rainy season. |
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But economic analysts told ZimOnline that President Robert Mugabe and his government - already squeezed for cash to import fuel and food - do not have funds to carry through the new programme and must have to set the money-printer on overdrive to meet their housing target, a move sure to push inflation through the roof. “Basically they will have to print it (money),” said head of the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Graduate School of Management, Tony Hawkins. He added: “The inflationary impact will be pretty dire . . . this whole thing is a tactically clever attempt to divert attention from the government’s policy (but it will backfire).” Inflation, declared Zimbabwe’s number one enemy by Mugabe, retreated from an all time high of 622.8 percent in January 2004 to the current 144.4 percent but remains one of the highest such rates in the world. The government could simply borrow money on the domestic market to pay local property developers and housing brigades it says it is rounding up to construct houses across the country. But that also would push up further the government’s domestic debt now totalling Z$10 trillion with an interest bill of Z$3.8 trillion. The state’s domestic debt was already seen ballooning fuelled by yet more unbudgeted expenditure after Mugabe expanded his Cabinet by adding four new ministries. Some analysts said the government might choose to raid statutory reserves which attract near zero interest rates, a tempting option that however would increase money supply and inflation. An economic consultant with a leading Harare financial firm said: “The government may also just get statutory reserves from banks very cheaply but this is depositors’ money, they will not be borrowing they will simply take the money and depositors will not earn any interest … the end effect is an upwards push on inflation, much more inflation is on the way and I reckon inflation will reach 350 by year-end.” And to add more hurdles for the government housing project, officials at the Harare City Council’s town planning department said even if the project was to go ahead, the capital did not have adequate infrastructure such as water and sewer systems to support such a massive housing programme. Announcing the housing project to a central committee meeting of his ruling ZANU PF party, Mugabe vowed to ensure the project was carried through to the finish because Zimbabweans “deserved better accommodation” than the shacks his government was being criticised for destroying. But UZ political scientist Eldred Masunungure dismissed the housing project as mere political gimmickry meant to hoodwink the visiting Tibaijuka and the international community that Harare was sorting the mess created by the evictions. “One has to believe in miracles to believe what the government is saying. We have a disaster in the making,” Masunungure said. “All the things appear to be fire fighting, it (housing project) is a political gimmick to hoodwink the international community,” added the respected Masunungure. Zimbabwe is experiencing its worst economic crisis in years, which is blamed on Mugabe’s policies and has already left thousands jobless after companies were forced to shut down as a result of the worsening economic climate. Thousands others, who had gone into informal trading that contributed a third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, have in one single swoop lost critical income after their businesses were closed by the police. Close to a million people have been left without shelter after their shanty homes in and around cities were destroyed during the controversial exercise. - ZimOnline |
Forty Zimbabweans, on hunger strike in British detention centres, want the Home Office to lift its ban on involuntary deportations to Zimbabwe, but there is unlikely to be a "change of heart", the paper said. Yet "it is hard to conceive of a country where opposition sympathisers have more compelling grounds for ... fear."
British ministers deny they have put the lives of deportees at risk, "but these are weasel words", argued the Daily Mail 's Melanie Phillips. "Dozens of people who have been returned have simply disappeared - which means by definition there cannot be any 'substantiated reports of abuse'" concerning those Zimbabweans sent home by Britain, she argued.
The Observer compared "this Home Office obduracy" to the Zimbabwean president's own recent campaign forcing "shantytown dwellers back to inhospitable and often dangerous areas. By ignoring the parallels, we lose all credibility in our justified condemnation of Mr Mugabe's increasing tyranny," said the paper.
Dumisani Muleya, writing in the Zimbabwe Independent , was not convinced by Mr Mugabe's claim that the clearances were an attempt to boost the Zimbabwean economy by cracking down on illegal settlements. Instead, the "nationwide demolition blitz" that has claimed more than 200,000 shantytown homes was further evidence of "the rise of a police state and a breakdown of social order", Muleya argued.
Obediah Mazombwe, in Zimbabwe's Sunday
Mail , countered that the clearances were necessary because "chaotic
urbanisation" had placed an "unbearable strain" on Harare. "Zimbabwe has only
destroyed illegal structures and has plans to put in place legal and better
housing." But for the Zimbabwe Sunday Mirror , that was an old
promise that "has not been delivered in the past 25 years".