Operation Murambatsvina (English: Operation Drive Out Rubbish), also officially known as Operation Restore Order, is a large-scale Zimbabwean government campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country. The campaign started in 2005 and according to United Nations estimates has affected at least 700,000 people directly through loss of their home or livelihood and thus could have indirectly affected around 2.4 million people. Robert Mugabe and other government officials characterize the operation as a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities, and as an effort to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious disease in these areas.
However, the campaign has met with harsh condemnation from Zimbabwean opposition parties, church groups, non-governmental organizations, and the wider international community. The United Nations has described the campaign as an effort to drive out and make homeless large sections of the urban and rural poor, who comprise much of the internal opposition to the Mugabe administration.
Read more about Operation Murambatsvina: Etymology of The Word "Murambatsvina", Overview, Background, Alternative Reasons For The Clearances, Zimbabwe Government Response To UN Report
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)