PREFACE
The right to govern is premised upon the duty to protect the governed: governments are
elected to provide for the security of their citizens, that is, to promote and protect the
physical and livelihood security of their citizens. In return for such security the citizens agree
to surrender the powers to govern themselves by electing representatives to govern them.
This is the moral contract between those who govern and those who are governed. For any
government to knowingly and deliberately undermine the security of its citizens is a breach
of this contract and the principle of democracy. Indeed, it removes the very foundation
upon which the legitimacy of government is based. Just as there is an injunction upon health
workers not to harm their patients - ‘primum non nocere”, “first do no harm” - so there must be
an injunction upon governments that they ensure that any action that they take or policy that
they implement will not be harmful. This is the very reason why there was formed in 2001
the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty of the United Nations
promulgating the “Responsibility to Protect”: States have an obligation to protect their
citizens, and the international community has an obligation to intervene when it is evident
that a state cannot or will not protect its people. This issue has been brought into sharp relief
by Operation Murambatsvina, a widespread and systematic campaign launched by the
Government of Zimbabwe in May, 2005.
ActionAid International and its partners have issued two reports on Operation Murambatsvina
to date. The first, carried out in Harare, indicated a wide range of adverse consequences for
the residents of Harare as a result of the operationi. This was consolidated in the second
report, which reported on a nationwide surveyii. These two reports confirmed and extended
the report of the UN Special Envoy on the forced displacementsiii. These reports and the
many other reports all adopt the same positions in generaliv:
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That the actions of the Zimbabwe Government were precipitate, excessive
and unnecessarily harsh;
That very large numbers of people have been adversely affected;
That very large numbers of people have been put at significantly greater risk
in a variety of ways;
That there is an urgent need for humanitarian assistance for those people
affected by the operation.
Overall, the various reports indicate that one of the consequences of Operation Murambatsvina
has been to create a ‘complex emergency’, placing Zimbabwe in the situation of countries
undergoing civil war or low intensity conflicts. In situations of mass violence in particular,
there are a wide range of interacting factors that must be addressed with urgency, and these
especially implicate economic development, social capital, and human rightsv. Much of this
was raised in the report of the UN Special Envoy’.
The report of the UN Special Envoy was criticized by the Zimbabwe Government on a
number of specious grounds, but, as pointed out above, the report has been corroborated in
virtually every respect by local Zimbabwean research. Whilst the Government’s position on
further displacements, evictions, and harassment of informal traders remains unclear, there
i