Background
Overall responsibility for the clearances rests with the ruling party, ZANU-PF. The previous Chairperson of the Harare Commission, Dr. Jameson Kurasha, initiated Operation Murambatsvina weeks after the disputed elections were held there. The Harare Commission led by Sekesai Makwavarara is currently running the affairs of the City of Harare despite the fact that there is a pending application to the High Court questioning its authority to do so. The Commission itself was appointed by Ignatious Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development, leading one Zimbabwean newspaper to comment that "President Mugabe, through the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Ignatious Chombo, is now effectively in control of the City of Harare".
Mugabe said the clearances are needed to carry out "a vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity" and he has described the program as an "urban renewal campaign." Chombo has described the operation in terms of 'restoring order': "It is these people who have been making the country ungovernable by their criminal activities actually." The Zimbabwean Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, said that Operation Murambatsvina was meant to "clean the country of the crawling mass of maggots bent on destroying the economy."
While police have carried out most of the demolitions, they have been supported by the army and the National Youth Service. Many inhabitants have been forced to destroy their own homes, sometimes at gunpoint.
People whose homes have been demolished are being told to return to the rural areas or face further action from the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization. Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere claimed that there is "nobody in Zimbabwe who does not have a rural home".
Read more about this topic: Operation Murambatsvina
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