US embassy cable - 05HARARE914

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HARARE 000914 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
AF FOR DAS T. WOODS 
AF/S FOR B. NEULING 
OVP FOR NULAND 
NSC FOR DNSA ABRAMS, SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2010 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, PINR, ASEC, ZI, Restore Order/Murambatsvina 
SUBJECT: RESTORE ORDER TSUNAMI ROLLS ON 
 
Classified By: Charge d' Affaires a.i. under Section 1.4 b/d 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
1. (C) Now in its second month, Operation Restore Order is 
affecting both urban and rural populations throughout the 
country.  In Harare, residents of high-density suburbs, 
domestics and other staff in low-density suburbs, and tenants 
in downtown office buildings have been turned out of their 
buildings.  In rural areas, police have principally been 
targeting unauthorized residents on commercial farms, many of 
whom settled at the GOZ's behest years ago.  Residents of 
transit camps are receiving minimal levels of health care 
from the GOZ for now, with limited food and sanitation 
assistance coming from international organizations. 
 
2. (C) Most of the estimated 340,000-plus individuals 
displaced by Restore Order remain homeless, are crowding into 
temporary accommodations provided such as churches or 
community centers, have moved in with relatives/friends, or 
are moving to rural areas.  Some are still sleeping in the 
open and a number of deaths from exposure have been reported 
as the weather has turned increasingly colder in Zimbabwe,s 
winter season.  End Summary. 
 
----------------------------------- 
Harare Neighborhood Sweeps Continue 
----------------------------------- 
 
3. (C) Embassy personnel witnessed the effects of Operation 
Restore Order on visits to the high-density suburbs of Mbare, 
Tafara, Kuwadazana, Mufakose, Highfield Extension, and 
various neighborhoods of Chitungwiza. (N.B. septels will 
document EmbOff observations in Masvingo and Mutare.)  In 
Tafara and Mabvuku, EmbOffs saw street vendors returning to 
their informal vegetable trade despite heavy police 
harassment.  In the St. Mary,s neighborhood of Chitungwiza, 
EmbOff spoke with one family who had been reduced to moving 
from relative to relative each night just for a place to 
sleep.  EmbOffs also observed buses with large pieces of 
furniture and other household effects strapped atop heading 
out of Harare, signifying people,s move to rural Zimbabwe. 
We continue to get reports that rural chiefs and headmen, 
lacking capacity to absorb the urbanites or not wanting 
suspected opposition supporters in their communities, often 
turn them away, forcing them to return to Harare or squat 
elsewhere in the countryside. 
 
4. (C) Public access to the operation remains quite open, and 
many international and local NGOs have provided accounts 
(e-mailed to AF/S) of destruction and its aftermath.  Reports 
include the neighborhoods of Epworth, Newpark and Goodhope 
Extension, Tafara, Mabvuku, Highfield, and Glen View.  In 
these neighborhoods alone, the affected number of people 
could easily reach 100,000.  Many of the destroyed buildings 
were officially opened by GOZ representatives or even had 
official assistance in their construction.  For example, the 
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has documented the 
destruction of the Joshua Nkomo Housing Co-Operative, which 
was built in part by the City of Harare. 
 
5. (C) In neighborhoods yet to be affected, people were 
busily tearing down their own homes and businesses in advance 
of an expected police and/or military onslaught.  According 
to local residents, police informed them that they could 
either tear down their own structures or else the police 
would do so and then charge each resident in excess of Z$1 
million (US$100 at the official auction rate) for the cost of 
hauling off their rubble.  Police have also destroyed 
domestic quarters, cottages, and other small out buildings in 
low-density suburbs. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
Office Buildings Emptied: A Dressmaker's Tale 
--------------------------------------------- 
6. (C) On June 22, police emptied seven office buildings in 
downtown Harare of their tenants.  A tenant who owned a 
dressmaking school on the fifth floor of one building told 
Poloff that police told tenants they had until the afternoon 
to remove all possessions from the premises or have them 
confiscated.  Poloff visited the building at mid-day and 
found the street filled with furniture, files, office 
equipment, sewing machines and the like, with occupants 
ferrying remaining items out via a congested staircase.  The 
mood was a mix of exasperation and surprising good humor. 
Police milled about at the building entrance, ignoring and 
being ignored by the workers.  Asked by Poloff why the 
building was being emptied, the senior uniformed police 
smiled and said "Ach; we know nothing." 
 
7. (C) According to the dressmaking school owner, authorities 
had given tenants no advance warning and she remained unsure 
why the building was closing.  She had heard alternately that 
it had too many MDC tenants and that authorities were going 
after the building's South Asian owners and their hard 
currency.  She had tried in vain to enlist the intervention 
of friends in high places.  After she had removed all her 
equipment, she reached a senior police official contact who 
told her that she would be permitted to remain and should not 
remove her items. However, police on the premises were 
insistent that no one and nothing could remain, even though 
she showed them all relevant permits and tax/fee receipts. 
She said she was outraged but would not pursue her rights 
legally because she knew she would lose and she did not want 
to provoke authorities.  She would continue to press her high 
level contacts, though. 
 
--------------------------- 
Porta,s Population Pummeled 
--------------------------- 
 
8. (C) On June 29, EmbOff visited Porta Farm located 
approximately 30 km from Harare, where destruction was 
underway.  Those who had just lost their homes were sitting 
around their piled up goods.  One man remarked, &we are so 
desperate, they said they cannot transport us from here to 
our communal homes but can only move us with the barest of 
our goods to Mbare or to Caledonia Farm.8  Another woman 
said &we have obtained a court order to stop this demolition 
but the police are just going ahead without even looking at 
it.8  Another man, echoed by all those around, explained 
&they said we must be out of here by 4 pm, failing which 
they are coming to beat us badly and crush our property. 
They said they do not want to see people here any more.8  A 
few armed police details watched the demolition process and 
protected the equipment and operators.  On the way out of the 
farm, a young man came up to EmbOff's car pleading for 
blankets to protect his wife and two-day old child from the 
night cold (about 40 degrees F). 
 
9. (C) On June 30, EmbOff returned to Porta Farm to discover 
that most of the settlements had been razed, with only a 
primary school, secondary school, mosque, and church left 
standing.  Some of the farm,s former residents were moving 
their belongings to surrounding farms while others were 
carted away by authorities to Caledonia Camp and still others 
were hitchhiking by the roadside.  (Note: Many people of 
Malawian or Mozambiquan origin had been moved to Porta Farm 
in the early 1990s to "beautify" the capital ahead of a 
Commonwealth Conference in Harare.  End note).  Even though 
the schools were still standing, teachers and children alike 
wondered aloud how the school could survive with most of the 
students no longer having a place to live.  Some of the 
youths at the farm claimed they had attempted to put up a 
fight against the demolitions but that heavily armed police 
had overpowered them and arrested several. 
 
------------------------- 
Caledonia Camp Congested 
------------------------- 
10. (C) On June 28, EmbOff visited Caledonia Farm, one of at 
least two transit camps just outside Harare for those 
literally stranded by the roadside.  While there, EmbOff saw 
several trucks hauling away families with their belongings to 
their rural homes.  Health conditions were deteriorating with 
about 2000 adults and children not changing clothes for days, 
lacking clean bathing water, and sharing 5 male toilets and 2 
female toilets.  In addition, several elderly residents were 
without family or friends to help. 
 
11. (C) On June 29, Emboff again visited the transit camp, 
and was warmly greeted by Officer-in-Charge Wilfred Moyo with 
a request for assistance.  Moyo emphasized the transitional 
nature of the camp and asserted that many people had recently 
moved on to permanent housing.  He reported that the GOZ 
provided no support for the camp,s 4500 residents, including 
400 school-aged children no longer attending school.  The 
camp completely relied upon foreign assistance, with 
Christian Care providing food, UNICEF/EU providing water, and 
the ICRC providing toilets.  The residents scrounged for 
materials to build their own temporary structures. 
 
12. (C) Each day, the Ministry of Health sends a team of 
three nurses to Caledonia as a mobile clinic.  However, Head 
Nurse Maseke told PolOff that he was told his services would 
only be needed for a few days and his team was scheduled to 
return to its normal hospital duties very soon.  He knew of 
no plans to send a replacement team to the camp.  Maseke 
stated that more than two months in camp-like conditions 
would prove detrimental to mental and physical health.  He 
especially worried about a &dependency syndrome8 setting in 
as people entered a prolonged state of enforced idleness. 
Maseke reported that his clinic had basic medicines for skin 
rashes, stomach ailments, and other such problems but no 
provisions for patients requiring ARV drugs and monitoring. 
Such patients, Maseke stated, could receive care at Harare 
hospitals but lacked transport. 
 
------------------------ 
GOZ: Winding Down and Rebuilding 
------------------------ 
 
13. (C) Even as Restore Order continued in both urban and 
rural settings, the GOZ has been indicating publicly for more 
than a week that the clean-up operation was winding down and 
the GOZ would now focus on accommodating those displaced.  It 
has publicly pledged Z$1 trillion (US$100 million) to new 
construction of residential and commercial stands, including 
the construction of 250,000 new housing stands by August 30, 
2005.  In late June, the GOZ publicly published a list of 
thousands of government employees, including senior police 
officials with established residences, designated to receive 
stands on the recently razed Whitecliff settlement.  However, 
many reportedly have been unable to register for their stands 
at the chaotic city offices.  We have observed some 
construction of residential and commercial stands underway, 
but not nearly fast enough to meet the GOZ pledge. 
 
14. (C) As of June 29, The International Organization for 
Migration (IOM) estimated that approximately 349,055 
individuals from 69,811 households had been displaced as a 
result of Operation Restore Order while other groups have 
placed the number as high as 1 million.  The IOM further 
documented rapid movement of people from transit camps in 
Mutare to the rural areas in an apparent attempt to 
counteract adverse publicity and to downplay the operation's 
scope and impact to the visiting UN team.  IOM further 
reported that police were moving door to door in Victoria 
Falls, Harare, and Bulawayo inspecting the number of families 
staying in each house and moving "extra" people into the 
street and/or holding camps. 
 
-------- 
Comment 
-------- 
15. (C) The visit of a senior UN official (septel) has not 
blunted the GOZ's enthusiasm for Restore Order; President 
Mugabe and the official press have remained strident in their 
defense of the operation as an exercise in urban 
beautification, economic "rationalization", and law 
enforcement.  The displacements appear set to continue with 
the focus likely to shift to rural areas, especially 
evictions from the commercial farms of the ruling party 
elite.  GOZ construction of new housing and commercial stands 
may proceed, likely with great official fanfare, but the GOZ 
has no where near the resources needed to assist the victims 
of the operation and reconstruction is likely to benefit the 
well-connected much more than the truly needy while doing 
little to stem seething public resentment of the regime. 
SCHULTZ