Once again it is winter

Once again it is winter and the weather is getting cooler. Six years ago, I was a student journalist and witnessed one of the worst events of my life – the destruction of homes by President Robert Mugabe in an operation called Murambatsvina.

It was in the month of May in 2005 when the demolitions that made close to a million people homeless began. Soldiers and the police, under command from Mugabe, destroyed our homes and our lives, as family and friends were devastated. At the time Mugabe’s aide, police commissioner Augustine Chihuri, described the operation as designed to get rid of maggots.

Today, people who once had homes are homeless and are at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather which promises to be freezing this June and July, the coldest months on the country’s calendar.

Victims of Murambatsvina occupy the bottom tier in the social ladder and are often victims of commutable diseases such cholera. Food insecurity is rife among them and Mugabe who destroyed their homes does not even care. Mugabe has never apologised for the madness that saw children dropping out of school and people being displaced from their sources of income, as the President sought to punish the urbanites for voting for the MDC (then an opposition party).

And now that the dust has settled, nothing has been done to the people who gravely abused and trampled on our rights to shelter. Today, people who once had walls and rooves over their heads now live in plastic mansions that rumble with the wind, while Mugabe and his agents of destruction are living in luxurious, modern day houses with all the trappings that I cannot even imagine.

While the summer warms my heart the winter feeds my soul with gloom and sadness. I get angry every winter when I remember the horrors of Murambatsvina six years ago and I am not alone, as thousands of other Zimbabweans lost so much during that unforgettable month.

This entry was posted by Simon Moyo on Thursday, May 12th, 2011 at 9:09 am. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.