Untitled - Rebel Studies Library

112 PLANET OF SLUMS
Dutton, "the southern part of the city was for the poor, as summed
up in the old Beijing adage, 'In the east are the wealthy, in the west live
the aristocrats and bureaucrats, while in the south there is only
poverty."'58) Most of the slum's 1 00,000 or so residents came from the
Wenzhou district of Zhejiang: an area famous for both the business
acumen of its inhabitants and the shortage of arable land. A majority
were young, poorly educated mangliu, or "floaters," without official
residence papers who leased shacks from local farmers and worked in
sweatshops, organized by clan-based gangs, where Beijing's cheap
winter garments and leather goods are made. 59 Political scientist
Dorothy Solinger describes how everywhere in Zhejiang Village, "it
was common to find four or five sewing machines, four or five adults,
at least one infant, and only two or three beds within one ten-squaremeter
room."60
The demolition of the slum, which began in early November 1995
and went on for two months, was a protracted military operation that
involved 5000 armed police and party cadres, and was coordinated by
members of the Party Central Committee and State CounciL Although
Zhejiang Village had long been stigmatized for its alleged gangs, drugs,
crime, and high incidences of venereal disease, its destruction -
Solinger says - was "decided at the very highest level by Premier [Ii]
Peng himself . .. as a warning to all others who ventured into cities illegally."
In the end, 9917 homes were destroyed, 1645 "illegal"
businesses (ranging from pedicabs to medical clinics) were shut down,
and 18,621 "illegal" residents deported.61 (As Solinger notes, "within a
few months of this dramatic destruction, however, many of the transients
were back in place."62)
Large-scale slum clearance - as exemplified by the destruction of
Zhejiang Village - is frequently coordinated with the repression of
street vendors and informal workers. General Sutiyoso, the powerful
governor of Jakarta, is probably second only to the Burmese generals
58 Dutton, Street/ife China, p. 149.
59 Liu Xiaoli and Liang Wei, "Zhejiangcun: Social and Spatial Implications of
Informal Urbanization on the Periphery of Beijing," Cities 14:2 (1997), pp. 95-98.
60 Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China, p. 233.
61 Dutton (quoting from official documents), Street/ife China, pp. 152-59.
62 Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China, p. 69.
HAUSSMANN IN THE TROPICS 113
in his abuse of the human rights of the poor in Asia. Notorious for his
persecution of dissent under the Suharto dictatorship, Sutiyoso has
since 2001 "made it his personal crusade to clear Jakarta of informal
kampungs, as well as its vendors, street musicians, homeless people, and
pedicabs." With support from big business, mega-developers, and,
more recently, President Megawati herself, the governor has evicted
more than 50,000 slum-dwellers, thrown 34,000 pedicab drivers out of
work, demolished the stalls of 21,000 street vendors, and arrested
hundreds of street musicians. His ostensible aim is to make Jakarta
(population 12 million) into a "second Singapore," but grassroots
opponents, such as the Urban Poor Consortium, have charged that he
is simply clearing slums for future development by his influential
backers and political cronies.63
If some slum-dwellers commit the "crime" of being in the path of
progress, others err by daring to practice democracy. In the aftermath
of the corruption-tainted 2005 Zimbabwe elections, President Robert
Mugabe turned his wrath against the street markets and shantytowns of
Harare and Bulawayo, where the poor had voted in large numbers for
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The first
stage of sinisterly titled Operation Murambasvina (" Drive Out Trash")
in early May was a police assault on the city's 34 flea markets. One
police official reportedly urged his men: "From tomorrow, I need
reports on my desk saying that we have shot people. The President has
given his full support for this operation so there is nothing to fear. You
should treat this operation as war. , , 64
And the police did. Stalls and inventories were systematically burned
or looted, and more than 17,000 traders and jitney drivers were
arrested. A week later, the police began to bulldoze shacks in MDC
strongholds as well as in pro-Mugabe slums (Chimoi and Nyadzonio,
for instance) that were located in areas coveted for redevelopment.
In one case, Hatcliffe Extension west of Harare, the police evicted
63 Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, "Housing by People in Asia," as well as
press releases from the Asian Human Rights Commission and Urban Poor
Consortium (see Urban Poor website: www.urbanpoor.or.id).
64 Munyaradzi Gwisai, "Mass Action Can Stop Operation Murambasvina,"
International Socialist Organisation (Zimbabwe), 30 May 2005; BBC News, 27 May
2005; Guardian, 28 May 2005; Los Angeles Times, 29 May 2005.