Zimbabwe 'cleanup' taxes churches

"Operation Murambatsvina" has been condemned by Britain, the US, and the European Union. So concerned is UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that he has appointed an envoy to travel to Zimbabwe soon to measure the "humanitarian impact" of the evictions, a spokesperson announced on Monday.

Inside the brightly lit church hall in Tafara, women and children chat in low voices among the wicker baskets and shabby mattresses. Music from a radio blares out. There's no fury here, just a palpable sense of resignation.

Chipo, a 32-year-old woman dressed in a thin grey pullover, has been sleeping at the church.

"This country is horrid. What does he [Mugabe] want us to do?" she asks with a nervous giggle.

Like most people here, Chipo is looking for a lift to the "rural areas." She wants to get to Karoi, a small town 125 miles northwest of the capital, Harare. She plans to leave her two daughters there with relatives and come back alone in the hope of finding work.

But not everyone has family to turn to, says Mupandasekwa. Many Tafara residents are of Malawian or Zambian origin and have nowhere else to go in Zimbabwe. "The only place they've known as home is here," he says. "They don't know the rural areas. This is their only treasure."

The government has set up a temporary "holding camp" at a farm on the outskirts of Harare where around 2,000 displaced families are sleeping in tents. According to local press reports, conditions there are harsh, and fears of disease are running high. State radio announced Tuesday that a few local aid organizations have been allowed to distribute blankets and other provisions to people in the camp.

The government says it is committed to the development of small businesses, but wants them to operate in an "orderly fashion," as Mugabe said recently on state radio. But with 80 percent unemployment and an economy that has been foundering since 2000 when the government took land from white farmers, residents here rely heavily on "informal" businesses and urban gardens to sustain them. Once the breadbasket of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe announced earlier this year that it needs to import as much as 1.2 million metric tons of food to feed the country's 12 million people.

Although many city residents are bitter about "Operation Murambatsvina," it appears unlikely to loosen Mugabe's 25-year old hold on power. His party swept to victory in a by-election held in a rural stronghold this past weekend.

"[The police operation] has hurt him tremendously, except it's in areas that he doesn't value in terms of his tenure in office," says John Makumbe, a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe.

But Mr. Makumbe says there was evidence that Mugabe, the 81-year-old former guerrilla leader, had lost some support among veterans of the country's 1970s war against white minority rule. Some of the ex-fighters, traditionally strong supporters of the president, were horrified to see their homes destroyed.

"We've even had some of them saying, 'Down with Mugabe,' something we couldn't imagine war veterans saying six weeks ago," Makumbe adds.

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