[The figure has grown. I wonder what the final toll will be. It appears as if Mugabe is also trying to intimidate the urban blacks. Jan]

Zimbabwe police have arrested more than 22,000 people as a fierce blitz on illegal stores and shantytowns gathers pace. It already has sent homeless people fleeing for the countryside, the state Herald newspaper said. “We have so far arrested a total of 22,735 people and recovered 33.5 kg of gold from 47 illegal gold panners and 26,000 litres of fuel,” Assistant Police Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena told the newspaper. Bvudzijena was not immediately reachable for comment. Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, which draws the bulk of its support in urban areas, has called on people to mobilise against the crackdown, which has also been criticised by religious leaders. President Robert Mugabe’s government says the campaign is meant to stamp out black market trading and other crime in slums around Harare and other cities. Police have used sledgehammers and bulldozers to demolish thousands of illegal shacks and torched others, leaving residents scrambling to secure their possessions before their homes and businesses are destroyed. Many of those displaced by the crackdown are seeking to return to their family homes in the countryside, although a desperate fuel shortage caused by Zimbabwe’s deepening economic crisis has made transport difficult.

Zimbabwe’s economy has contracted by 30 per cent over the past five years and is reeling from shortages of foreign exchange, fuel and other key commodities amid sharp drops in international investment and tourism. Critics say the crisis has been caused in large part by Mugabe’s controversial policy of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks – a move they say all but destroyed the key commercial agricultural sector. Mugabe, 81 and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, lays the blame for the crisis on domestic and foreign opponents of his land reform program, who he says are bent on sabotaging the country. The crackdown marks the first major police campaign since Mugabe’s ruing Zanu PF party won a big victory in March parliamentary elections, which the MDC and western governments said were rigged. Government officials, who insist Zanu PF won fairly, say the blitz is an effort to stamp out black market trading which has boomed over the last five years, particularly in poor urban areas. Bvudzijena said many of those made homeless in the crackdown were being taken to a farm outside Harare where they were being processed before being sent back to rural areas.

The Herald said the crackdown had caused a huge jump in rents around Harare, with landlords in some affected townships more than doubling monthly charges as desperate people search for accommodation. “The exercise came as a relief to us because now we can charge whatever rentals we want, taking advantage of the high demand,” the newspaper quoted one landlord in the township of Highfield as saying. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) this week denounced the crackdown as a sign of the “brutality and cruelty” of Mugabe’s government and urged people to resist. But while there were isolated clashes between angry township residents and police last week, the drive has continued with little sign of full-scale fighting and many residents simply moving out before police arrive. The government denies any political motive for the crackdown and says it is being broadly welcomed by Zimbabweans who want to see order restored in cities.

From News24 (SA), 1 June
Source: WWW.ZwNews.Com