US embassy cable - 05HARARE923

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 000923 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AF/S FOR B. NEULING 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR C. COURVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/31/2010 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, EAGR, ECON, EAID, SOCI, ASEC, ZI, Restore Order/Murambatsvina 
SUBJECT: "RESTORE ORDER", HUNGER STALK MASVINGO 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Charge d'Affaires Eric T. Schultz under Secti 
on 1.4 b/d 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (C) Poloff's visit to Masvingo June 27-28 disclosed that 
the GOZ's Operation "Restore Order" was less onerous there 
than in Harare and other locations.  However, opposition and 
NGO sources said hunger was growing in the region and 
continued food availability was uncertain.  End summary. 
 
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Restore Order Milder Than Elsewhere 
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2.  (SBU) On June 27, poloff observed that the informal 
vendor areas in Masvingo's central business district (CBD) 
and several vendor stalls along the main highway had been 
demolished.  However, many vendor stalls were operating on 
the CBD's periphery and other locations throughout town. 
Some residences had been reduced to rubble but most 
residences of the apparent type demolished in Harare and 
Mutare remained standing.  Crisscrossing high-density 
neighborhoods, poloff did, however, observe a few families 
living under plastic sheeting. 
 
3.  (C) Masvingo's MDC Mayor Chaimiti told poloff that when 
Restore Order got underway in Harare, police approached him 
on May 23 to suggest a meeting to discuss the operation's 
implications for Masvingo.  They said they had not received 
instructions but wanted to minimize disruption to the city's 
business.  Chaimiti told them that the city was trying to 
work out the vendors' relocation and had identified a 
tentative location on the edge of the CBD.  They undertook to 
meet again May 26. 
 
4.  (C) Without warning, on May 25 the police removed all 
informal traders in a sweep through the CBD, according to 
Chaimiti.  The police oversaw the demolition of the city's 
principal squatter neighborhood, which housed about 1000 in 
his estimation.  He said that, unlike other cities, Masvingo 
had been strict over the years in not permitting construction 
of "backyard structures" being targeted in other cities, but 
police were requiring the demolition of chicken coops common 
in suburban neighborhoods. 
 
5. (C) Chaimiti said that vendors had initially offered to 
front money for arrangement of an alternative informal 
vending area but police refused.  A committee composed of the 
municipality, police, the district and provincial 
administrators, Ministry of Public Health officials and 
others had been conferring and recently agreed on an 
alternative site for the vendors.  The city awaited money 
promised by the government for the construction of new 
commercial and residential stands.  Chaimiti attributed the 
operation to the President himself and, echoing others, 
asserted that it was designed principally to pre-emptively 
crush growing urban unrest over declining economic 
conditions. 
 
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Food Situation "Very Bad" 
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6.  (C) Chaimiti cast the food situation in Masvingo province 
as "very bad".  He said all available meal in Masvingo was 
imported and its continued availability was uncertain.  He 
also had received reports that distributions by the Grain 
Marketing Board in Zaka district had been withheld from 
suspected opposition supporters.  Logistics to support 
distribution remained good but politicization reduced the 
total amount distributed, requiring those who received 
distributions to share with those denied. 
 
7.  (C) In a June 25 meeting with poloff, Sylvester Chin'anga 
of the Rural Unity and Development Organization, a local NGO, 
confirmed the Mayor's account of Masvingo's worrisome food 
situation.  Supermarket shelves remained stocked in urban 
areas but prices were requiring families to consume less.  He 
thought that locals' personal reserve stocks would run out by 
December or January, perhaps earlier, and the availability 
and affordability of imports was uncertain. 
 
8.  (C) According to Chin'anga, the GOZ's Operation Restore 
Order already was further handicapping rural communities' 
food security.  Instead of receiving remittances from family 
member vendors in the cities to buy foodstufs, local 
communities were now just receiving unemployed vendors who 
used to remit.  The communities would have more mouths to 
feed and less income.  Many families had been cutting the 
number of daily meals.  Chin'anga noted that school 
attendance, often a precursor indicator of growing food 
insecurity, was dropping in the region. 
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Comment 
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9.  (C) The severity of Restore Order may vary from area to 
area, depending in part on the integrity, confidence and 
latitude of local police and their relations with local 
government officials.  In Masvingo, the apparent rapport 
between the police and the Mayor, who won his May mayoral 
by-election unopposed, may have spared the city Restore 
Order's full brunt, but this appears to be an exception to 
the rule and even here there has been suffering.  However, 
the bigger concern in Masvingo and elsewhere remains food 
security.  In Masvingo rural and urban communities have 
enough to scrape by for now but nobody is confident they will 
a few months from now. 
SCHULTZ