Anti-Eviction Day in Zimbabwe

southern africa | community struggles | non-anarchist press Monday May 15, 2006 18:42 by ZSF

We the people of Zimbabwe do solemnly declare on this day that we shall
forever remember with heavy hearts and burning anger, the atrocious
brutality visited upon the poor people of this nation by the Government
of Zimbabwe under the so called Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out the
Filth)

We mourn those who lost their lives at the hands of overzealous state
agents carrying out this operation; we grieve with the thousands of
Operation Murambatsvina victims who today are still in dire need of
humanitarian assistance; we are traumatized with those thousands of
families evicted from their dwellings who today are homeless and denied
the very basic right to earn a living and to have a roof over their
heads; we endure with boiling anger the sight of displaced AIDS patients
now condemned to fast tracked death because they can no longer carry on
with treatment; we struggle together with that woman who daily braves
police brutality and outright looting as she sells tomatoes on the
streets so that she can feed and send her kids to school. We salute
those brave enough to resist this dehumanization by an exhausted regime.
In an environment of a shattered economy with 80% unemployment we ask
the same question as every informal trader; Why are we denied the right
to trade, the right to our only source of livelihood?

Today we remember the 700 000 people who were evicted and displaced by
Operation Murambatsvina, we remember the 300 000 kids who were forced to
drop out of school, we remember the 25 000 vendors who were arrested and
had their goods looted by corrupt and callous police officers who acted
with total impunity. We remember everything we lost, the trauma and the
tears we had to shed at the hands of a heartless regime that has lost
the support of the people and now rules by force.

For trampling on our dignity and reducing us to a nation of beggars all
in the name of political survival we hold the government of Zimbabwe,
its functionaries, its proxies and the political elite guilty for crimes
against humanity, under both local and international law. We shall be
unrelenting in our quest for justice.

We condemn the government of Zimbabwe's neo-liberal economic agenda
whose failure has impoverished the vast majority of Zimbabweans. We also
condemn the widespread corruption by functionaries of the government of
Zimbabwe and those in the private sector. Accordingly we call for a
people centered economy in which the people shall govern and are
guaranteed of basic socio-economic rights and dignity.

Today we remember the millions of impoverished Zimbabweans who are
victims of Operation Murambatsvina and rededicate ourselves to the
struggle for social justice and democracy. We will have two months of
Murambatsvina Commemorations in Zimbabwe beginning with an International
Anti-Eviction Day event on the 18th to be followed by the launch of the
Commemorations on the 27th at Zimbabwe Grounds, Highfield, one of
Zimbabwe`s oldest ghettos. The launch will feature solidarity messages
and revoltuionary arts performances condemning Operation Murambatsvina
and calling for Zimbabweans to struggle for their socio-economic rights.

Importantly we want to recognize that evictions, harassment and
criminalization of the poor is not confined to Zimbabwe alone. It is an
international crisis. Accordingly we call on all progressive forces
globally to immortalize our struggles against such shameful state
barbarism in declaring 18 May an International Anti-Eviction Day.

We the people of Zimbabwe declare that "another Zimbabwe is possible"-
in our life time.

Sign support for this declaration:



Name/ Organization:
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Email address:................................................................
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Please send your filled out form and messages of solidarity to
antievictioncampaign@yahoo.com

This campaign is spearheaded by social movements and organizations who
are members of the Zimbabwe Social Forum