African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on September 2, 2006
African Affairs 2007 106(422):21-45; doi:10.1093/afraf/adl024
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Popular Reactions to State Repression: Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe
Michael Bratton is Professor, Department of Political Science and African Studies, Michigan State University, and Executive Director, Afrobarometer (mbratton{at}msu.edu).
Eldred Masunungure is Head, Department of Political and Administrative Studies, University of Zimbabwe, and Director of the Mass Public Opinion Institute, Harare (director{at}mpoi.org.zw).
In May 2005, the government of Zimbabwe launched Operation Murambatsvina (OM), a state-sponsored campaign to stifle independent economic and political activity in the country’s urban areas. This article employs a national probability sample survey to analyse the popular reactions of ordinary Zimbabweans to this landmark event. It shows that the application of state repression succeeds at some goals, fails at others, and has powerful unintended effects. We report that the scope of OM was wide and that the main victims of OM were younger, unemployed families whom state security agents saw as potential recruits for social unrest. Whereas OM undoubtedly disrupted the informal economy, we show that it did not succeed in banishing urban dwellers to rural areas or permanently shutting down illicit trade. Moreover, the crackdown thoroughly discredited the police and other state institutions. We also demonstrate that state repression emboldened its victims, deepening polarisation between political parties and fortifying the ranks of Zimbabwe’s opposition movement.
1. Disturbing accounts of the human toll are given by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A report on the disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980 to 1988 (Legal Resources Foundation, Harare, 1997) and Richard Werbner, Tears of the Dead (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1991). On systematic electoral violence, see Norma Kriger, ‘ZANU-PF strategies in general elections, 1980–2000: discourse and coercion’, African Affairs 104 (2005), pp. 1–34. On the violence associated with land invasions and crackdowns on journalists, see Stephen Chan, Robert Mugabe: A life of power and violence (I.B. Taurus, London, 2003) and Andrew Meldrum, Where We Have Hope: A memoir of Zimbabwe (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2004).
2. For an insightful collection of current analyses by a variety of Zimbabwean commentators, see David Harold-Berry (ed.), Zimbabwe: The past is the future (Weaver Press, Harare, 2004).
3. ‘Zimbabwe police target minibuses’, BBC News, 24 May 2005.
4. The Joint Operations Command - comprised of army, police, prisons, and intelligence heads - coordinates military and security affairs and, on these matters, now carries greater policy weight than the civilian cabinet. A senior state intelligence officer was quoted as saying that ‘the operation is meant to reduce the number of people in the central business district so that, if violence erupts, it would be easy to contain.’ Zim Online (South Africa) www.zimonline.co.za, 24 May 2005. Journalist Baffour Ankomah, usually sympathetic to Mugabe, also reported that ‘the operation was the brainchild of Zimbabwe’s intelligence community’ designed to forestall ‘a Ukrainian-style revolution’ New African (London), October 2005, reprinted in The Herald (Harare), 4–5 October 2005.
5. Government of Zimbabwe, ‘Response of the Government of Zimbabwe to the Report by the UN Special Envoy on Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order’ (Harare, 2005).
6. ‘Rallying cry belies Mugabe’s fear of voter revolt’, The Times (UK), 31 March 2005.
7. Compared to the 2000 parliamentary election, ZANU-PF’s share of elected seats rose from 62 to 78, and the MDC’s share fell from 57 to 41. With the support of an additional 30 appointed MPs in the 150-seat House, ZANU-PF therefore enjoyed a two-thirds majority, enough to change the constitution.
8. Zimbabwe Election Support Network, ‘Statement on the 2005 parliamentary elections’, Harare, 3 April 2005. See also Carole Andrews and Bryn Morgan, ‘Zimbabwe after the 2005 parliamentary elections’, Research Paper No. 05/58 (UK House of Commons Library, London, August 2005).
9. ‘Police in Zimbabwe arrest 9000 traders’, Guardian (UK), 24 May 2005.
10. ‘Zimbabwe government continues blitz’, Associated Press, 5 June 2005.
11. ‘U.N. condemns Zimbabwe for bulldozing urban slums,’ New York Times, 23 July 2005.
12. United Nations, Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to Assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina by the UN Special Envoy on Human Settlements Issues in Zimbabwe, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka (United Nations, New York, 18 July 2005), p. 7.
13. ‘UN chief Annan’s statement on Zimbabwe demolitions’, Reuters, 22 July 2005.
14. ‘Zimbabwe steams ahead with demolitions’, Mail and Guardian (SA), 26 July 2005.
15. See ‘UN envoy says Zimbabwe’s crisis is deepening’, Business Day (SA), 7 December 2005 and ‘New threat of urban demolition’, IRIN - Integrated Regional Information Networks (UN), 7 April 2006.
16. For information on country coverage and research methods, see www.afrobarometer.org.
17. The sampling frame was the Government of Zimbabwe, Central Statistical Office, Census 2000 Zimbabwe: Preliminary results summary (Government Printer, Harare, 2003). In drawing the national probability sample, we followed the standard Afrobarometer sampling protocol, which can be found at http://www.afrobarometer.org/sampling.html. For ease of access to the present article, we did not burden the text with extensive methodological apparatus. If readers have queries about data collection or analysis, they are invited to visit the website or contact the authors directly.
18. ‘Zimbabwe takes harsh steps in major cities to counter unrest’, New York Times, 2 June 2005.
19. Action Aid International/Combined Harare Residents Association, A Study on the Impact of ‘Operation/Murambatsvina/Restore Order’ in 26 Wards of Harare High Density Housing Areas (AA/CHRA, Harare, July 2005).
20. Report of the Fact-Finding Mission (2005), p. 8.
22. ‘Annan may take up Mugabe invite’, The Scotsman (UK), 26 July 2005.
23. ‘Mugabe hoping to sidestep Mbeki and Annan’, Sunday Independent (SA), 24 July 2005. Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the UN also branded the report ‘exaggerated’, BBC News, 27 July 2005.
24. The margin of sampling error for a survey with 1048 respondents is plus or minus 3 percentage points at a 95 percent level of confidence. The confidence interval around the point estimate of 54 percent for OM victimization is therefore between 51 and 57 percent. This result almost exactly replicates the finding of an earlier survey conducted by the Mass Public Opinion Institute. Based on a national probability sample of similar size (n = 1041) and using the same question, MPOI found in July-August 2005 that 55 percent of respondents reported that they or their immediate families were affected. See Eldred Masunungure and Anyway Ndapadzwa, Zimbabwe Elections, 2005: Post-Parliamentary survey report (MPOI, Harare, August 2005).
26. This guesstimate is conservative compared to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s claim of 3.4 million Zimbabweans living abroad in 2004 (www.homelinkzimbabwe.com) and various journalistic accounts of 3 million or more, for example by Geoff Hill, What Happens After Mugabe? (Zebra Press, Cape Town, 2005), p. 2.
27. The World Bank’s African Development Indicators says 43 percent are under age 14 (World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004), p. 309.
28. Or, taking sampling error into account, between 2.55 and 2.85 million.
29. Survey respondents may have used an especially broad subjective definition when defining an OM victim as a member of their ‘immediate family’. There is also a small risk that some victims were double-counted as members of more than one respondent’s extended family. Either way, we doubt that we have undercounted.
30. Squatter settlements were unapproved, but many of them had existing court judgments that prevented the government from removing them without providing alternative accommodation. Some shacks in urban areas even had planning permission.
31. ‘Msika officially launches operation Garikai’, The Herald (Harare), 30 June 2005. Also ‘Zimbabwe: operation live well struggles to take off’, IRIN - Integrated Regional Information Networks (UN), 19 August 2005.
32. In Zimbabwe, as in other African countries, young and unemployed people are least likely to vote.
33. Mass Public Opinion Institute, Zimbabwe Elections, 2005 (MPOI, Harare, 2005) p. iii.
34. Note: the percentage figures should be treated with caution as the number of cases is small (n = 56).
35. Sixty percent of these respondents were urban versus 34 percent rural.
36. 35 percent among the former versus 37 percent among the latter.
37. 41 percent among the random sample of adults, 45 percent among displaced persons.
38. For 2004 estimates of institutional trust, see Michael Bratton, Annie Chikwana, and Tulani Sithole, ‘Propaganda and public opinion in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 23, 1 (2005), pp. 77–108.
39. According to an official report, ‘Police had been approached by local authorities to help in enforcing Council by-laws, which were being ignored . . . (and) to relocate street kids, vagrants, touts and vendors who were causing chaos in town.’ Zimbabwe Republic Police, ‘Zimbabwe Republic Police response to allegations of deaths suffered during Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order’, (Harare, August 2005).
40. This slight adjustment lies within the margin of sampling error for a single survey.
41. Pearson’s r = 0.271, p < 0.001.
42. By 9 percentage points: 71 percent for OM victims versus 80 percent for non-victims.
43. ‘Price of basics soars beyond reach of poor Zimbabweans’, Mail and Guardian (South Africa), 20 March 2006.
44. Pearson’s r = 0.962, p < 0.001. Indeed, these indicators are so closely correlated that either could act as a proxy for the other.
45. The proportion of MDC supporters who said they did not trust the ruling party ‘at all’ rose from 49 percent in April 2004 to 62 percent in October 2005.
46. Although the results of the bye-election of May 2006 in Budiriro suggest the mainstream MDC headed by Morgan Tsvangirai has little to fear from the breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara.
47. See International Crisis Group, ‘Post-election Zimbabwe: What next?’ Africa Report No. 93 http://www.crisisgroup.org (7 June, 2005).
48. Eldred, Masunungure, Anyway Ndapwadza, and Noma Sibanda, ‘Support for democracy and democratic institutions in Zimbabwe’, Afrobarometer Briefing Paper No. 27 http://www.afrobarometer.org (March 2006).
49. International Crisis Group, ‘Zimbabwe’s operation Murambatsvina: the tipping point?’ Africa Report No. 97, p. 4 http://www.crisisgroup.org (17 August, 2005).
50. ‘African leaders break silence over Mugabe’s human rights abuses’, The Guardian (UK), 4 January 2006.