60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

228 development dialogue december 2008 – revisiting the heart of darkness
ian who resigned his membership of the ZANU-PF Central Committee
as well as his seat in parliament.
It is quite clear that the violence of Murambatsvina, military in nature,
was the act of Zimbabwean state agents, initiated from elements
within the government. The aspect of communal violence occurring
in some parts of Africa was not present; the perpetrators were members
of the security apparatus, armed, and carrying out assaults on the
person and properties of unarmed civilians.
Responses
Reponses, too, need analysis. It is worth while examining the responses
to Murambatsvina of diff erent players, to look for common
patterns.
The victims
The vast majority of victims, if not all, responded fi rst with disbelief
and then with passivity. While some vendors managed to fl ee,
with or without their goods, the majority submitted, watched while
their property was destroyed or seized, or even carried it into police
trucks or on foot to the police stations. While there may have been
isolated incidents of resistance, they have not been detailed in documented
reports. Families watched as their houses were demolished by
sledgehammer and bulldozer, frequently not even being permitted
to salvage movable property or personal papers. Others dismantled
their own houses, labouring brick by brick to save at least some of the
materials. In this way they would avoid heavy fi nes that advance police
patrols claimed they would pay if they left their homes standing,
and they might manage to salvage roof sheets and some bricks which
would otherwise surely be smashed by the demolition squad. This
passivity has been noted in other contexts of mass violence, whether
it be European Jews walking to their annihilation, Cambodians on
death marches or Zimbabwean victims of Gukurahundi obediently
hacking their own family members with axes. In all cases the victims
appear paralysed with lack of understanding of what is happening to
them, and the certain knowledge that in the face of superior brute
force, resistance is futile.
Resistance only came later, but on a very individual and small scale.
It took the form of stubborn rebuilding of some structures and in
the return of vendors to their old turf. Now, however, the vendor
displayed 2 oranges and hid the rest, ever on the alert to make a
quick disappearance when a warning signal was sounded of police ap-