As evident from the quotations above, a major objective of Operation Murambatsvina (OM)
was to displace, forcibly, to rural areas those urban people whose houses were demolished.
The government's own statistics indicated that about 570,000 people, or 133,534 households,
were potentially subject to such displacement, this being the estimate of the population
housed in the 92,460 dwelling units demolished throughout the country (Ministry of Local
Government, Public Works and Urban Development, 2005, cited in Tibaijuka, 2005).1
There is one explicit and one implicit assumption underlying the government’s argument that
the displaced should 'return' to rural areas. Explicitly, it assumes that they all originated from
rural areas - since they were being told to 'return'. Implicitly, it assumes the displaced could
find sufficient livelihood opportunities in rural areas to subsist. Neither of these were true, as
will be shown below. Furthermore, and crucially, the forced displacements were a flagrant
breach of human rights on a massive scale. The government's arguments and related rhetoric,
however, were founded (however manipulatively) on the reality of continued linkages
between rural and urban areas in Zimbabwe, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, which are
briefly surveyed below.