Police-turned-thieves
June 9th, 2005
Our police-turned-thieves have stepped up bob’s deliberately vindictive campaign to destroy the informal sector (self-employed people – notably the poorest of Zim’s people).
Yesterday my wife went into the old Haddon & Sly building in Bulawayo. This used to be one of the largest departmental stores in Bullies until it closed its doors some years ago. It has been converted into an arcade with multiple little shops and businesses on its three floors. She went to a small shop there, and found the owner looking very harassed. Asked what the problem was, she explained that she (and all the other shops) had had a visit from our police-turned-thieves that morning and had been told that they would be back tomorrow. They had threatened that she had better have receipts (note the importance of the word receipt) for all of her assets and stock, or it would be confiscated. As a result, she explained, she was in the process of moving everything out from her shop. She pointed out her furniture. It had cost her six million dollars. She had paid the carpenter cash. There was no receipt. Knowing that our police-turned-thieves would confiscate it – without search warrants, due process, or even a receipt (note they are now totally unimportant) – she was abandoning her shop and taking everything with
her.
And who can blame her? This woman had battled for years to set up and own her own business, and it would be just taken away – “legally” stolen from her. I use “legally’ in the loosest sense of the word – only because the police-turned-thieves would be stealing it.
And steal it is the correct word! They are being allowed to keep whatever they want from what they take – there are no real police to watch over them, are there? The balance of the goods are being being arbitrarily sold off at rock bottom prices by the police themselves. I wonder where the proceeds of these sales are going? The police-turned-thieves christmas bash?
When I related this to a friend of mine, she shared that she had seen a phone card vendor arrested. A police-turned-thieves van pulled up to him, and he was bodily thrown in the back and whisked off. What had he done? He goes into town and buys bulk stock of phone cards for the three cellphone networks at a meagre discount, and sells them at face value at a traffic intersection, in all weather, all day. How “criminal” is that?
Later, she saw police-turned-thieves walk up to a fruit vendor and take their pick from his cart. They walked away, telling him that if he wanted payment, then he could come to the police-turned-thieves station for it! Yeah, right – like he had a choice!
This afternoon a friend messaged me. A shop called [name withheld] was visited by the police-turned-thieves yesterday. It is (rather was) a small shop that specialised in selling new and second-hand electrical goods, hifis, TV’s, cellphones and electrical/electronic spares. They literally stripped it bare – took all the stock! What for? Everyone knows how these shops are run – they wheel and deal, and buy stuff from runners, and people off the street. So what? They don’t harm anyone, and people earn a living, reasonably, honestly. Don’t tell me that this wasn’t sheer politcial vindictiveness, and outright theft!
So what does this say for Zim’s chances? Let’s just say, we are praying hard for deliverance! Where are the rights of the individual in Zim? Not with our police-turned-thieves, that’s for sure!
