Immigrants despair as news of crackdown spreads

A group of Zimbabwean immigrants outside a general store in Maun, a resort town in northwestern Botswana, react with shock to an article on the front page of a state-owned daily paper from home. "What are we going to do?" a woman asks as the story in the three-day-old copy of The Chronicle grips them with despair. Instead of answering, her friend asks her the same question. A sense of hopelessness pervades the little group. Over the past few weeks, Zimbabwean newspapers have not brought good news. The story of the government's controversial Operation Murambatsvina, the 'clean-up' campaign currently underway, has been widely reported. For the past month Zimbabwean police have demolished and torched backyard shacks, informal settlements and trading stalls in major towns across Zimbabwe, leaving about 200,000 people homeless and eliciting international condemnation. Police have bulldozed informal grocery shops and hair salons, the livelihood of these women who have come to Botswana to buy scarce commodities and take them back to Zimbabwe for resale at a profit. Shortages of basic commodities have been the reality of daily life in Zimbabwe since 2000, when the government launched the controversial fast-track land reform programme, taking land from white commercial farmers for redistribution to landless blacks. Since then a lingering drought has entered its fourth year, while the lack of foreign currency to import fuel, water purification chemicals and food, among many other necessities, has compounded the situation. The Zimbabwean women outside the supermarket in Maun pondered the impact the crackdown would have on them. "Where am I going to stay? What has become of my family? Will I ever find them?" asks one woman as she starts crying. Like most of her compatriots who have flocked to neighbouring Botswana since 2000, the woman, a single mother of two, has two-week visitor's visa. She survives by doing domestic work, laundry, gardening and plaiting hair in informal salons to raise the rent for her backyard shack in the sprawling satellite township of Chitungwiza, outside the capital, Harare. Chitungwiza was destroyed by the police on Sunday. "I left my children with ... [the minder]," she sobs. "Will she be able to take care of them?" The other women are too stunned to comfort her - they also have problems caused by the clean-up campaign. A man who identifies himself as George Moyo joins the group, saying his wife arrived from Zimbabwe this morning and told him that their tuckshop in Norton, 40 km south of Harare, was razed by the police on Monday. "Everything was burnt down. To add to the pain they made my wife pay a fine of Zim $2 million (US $202) for operating an illegal shop," he said. Moyo has been working illegally as a builder in Maun since 1991, and although he earns a low wage, because Botswana has no shortages he had been able to keep the shop well-stocked with commodities scarce in Zimbabwe, like cooking oil, toothpaste and soap. "I am caring for six AIDS orphaned children and the money we got from the tuckshop was helping us pay for their school fees," he added. The next person to join the group, Hama Samuriwo, had just back from Zimbabwe, bringing more bad news. "You can no longer cross into Zimbabwe with more than two items of each product you are carrying," he tells the group. "The customs officials at the Zimbabwean border are just taking extra things. I think they know we sell most of the goods we take home." This revelation causes more pain. Most of the women in the group supply hair salons with products that are no longer available in Zimbabwe; some also operate in flea markets, a prime target of the government's crackdown. Samuriwo says he nearly didn't make it to the Botswana border after he was stripped and searched, and police found him carrying the Pula 100 (US $20) to pay for a Botswana visa. Immigration officials at the Botswana border demand that Zimbabweans visiting their country show proof of having money to support themselves for the duration of their stay. "I had to pay them Pula 20 (US $4) to be allowed to continue with my journey," he said. The bulk of Zimbabweans escaping economic hardships at home have gone to South Africa and Botswana, which says its asylum conditions do not cater for economic refugees. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced this week that he had appointed Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, as his Special Envoy for Human Settlement Issues in Zimbabwe. She will investigate the humanitarian impact of the ongoing crackdown.