By Regerai Marwezu 

MASVINGO – Police in the southern town of Masvingo on Tuesday fought running battles with informal traders accusing the vendors of returning to sites they were evicted from under a controversial government clean-up exercise two years ago. 

The police raided informal traders in the poor working class suburbs of Mucheke, Rujeko and Runyararo and confiscated goods worth millions of dollars during the operation. 

Residents who spoke to ZimOnline on Tuesday said the fresh police crackdown on vendors was reminiscent of Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Clean-up Rubbish), a controversial exercise carried out in 2005 that saw the government demolish illegal shacks in urban areas. 

The exercise left at least 700 000 people homeless while another 2.4 million people were directly affected by the clean-up exercise, according to a United Nations (UN) report.  

Although some informal traders had operating licences issued by Masvingo council allowing them to sell their wares, the police ignored the licences arguing that the “papers” were issued in error. 

At Mucheke long-distance bus terminus, where most of the vendors sell their wares, the situation was tense with some vendors vowing to defy the police ban on their operations. 

“This is the only place where we can eke a living. We were given licences by the council allowing us to sell our wares here but the police are indiscriminately destroying and confiscating our goods,” said Naison Moyo, one of the informal traders at the bus terminus. 

Officer commanding Masvingo district, Chief Superintendent Lancelot Matange said the operation was the second phase of Operation Murambatsvina after vendors had returned to their original vending sites. 

“It is true that we have launched the second phase of the operation because we had seen that these people are not respecting government laws. 

“We are not going to recognise some of the licences issued by the council because they are insignificant in that these people are in the open. If the council wants them to operate it should built proper structures for the traders,” said Matange. 

Masvingo executive mayor, Engineer Alois Chaimiti, a senior member of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, yesterday dissociated himself from the operation saying his council had never sanctioned the exercise. 

“We never sanctioned the operation and the police are just acting on political orders from elsewhere,” said Chaimiti. 

The eviction of the vendors comes hardly a week after the Geneva-based international relief group, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, warned of fresh evictions in Zimbabwe. 

In a report released last week, the IDMC said many victims of Operation Murambatsvina had returned to urban areas where they continued to live in “unauthorised” structures raising prospects for fresh evictions. 

The IDMC is an international body established by the Norwegian Refugee Council that monitors conflict-induced internal displacement around the world.  - ZimOnline