THOUSANDS of Zimbabweans made homeless in the government’s ruthless clean-up campaign are being herded into re-education camps and told they can have a housing plot only if they swear allegiance to the party of President Robert Mugabe.

Those who refuse are loaded into trucks and dumped in remote rural areas, far from their own homes, where food is scarce. Human rights workers say they are being left to die in what they believe is a deliberate strategy by the Mugabe regime to exterminate opponents.

“This is social cleansing to try to eradicate the opposition,” said Trudy Stevenson, an opposition MP whose Harare North constituency includes Hatcliffe, where 30,000 people had their homes demolished along with an orphanage for children whose parents had died of Aids.

“It’s horrific. They are dumping people in rural areas to get rid of troublesome elements to make sure they can’t challenge the regime,” she added.

The government’s three-week Operation Murambatsvina — Shona for “clean up the filth” — has left hundreds of thousands of men, women and children without homes. Many are sleeping in streets in winter temperatures with no water. Church groups are warning that thousands could die of disease. There have been outbreaks of diarrhoea and reports of babies freezing to death.

The United Nations estimates that 200,000 are homeless while the opposition claims it is more than 1m.

Yesterday police rampaged through Harare, setting fire to the few remaining belongings that many homeless people had salvaged, and warning them against taking refuge in churches. So brutalised is the population that some torched their own possessions on police instructions.

A Harare police commander was reported to have authorised the use of live ammunition against people resisting eviction. “I need reports on my desk saying we have shot people,” he was said to told his officers. “The president has given his full support for this operation so there is nothing to fear. You should treat (it) as a war.”

The barbarous campaign has left observers to reflect on the chilling words of one of Mugabe’s closest lieutenants, Didymus Mutasa, about weeding opponents out of the population. “We would be better off with only 6m, with our own people who support the liberation struggle,” he said three years ago. “We don’t want all these extra people.”

Since then the population has indeed dropped, with an estimated 3.4m Zimbabweans now living outside the country. Almost half the remaining 11m are on the verge of starvation. A UN assessment last week estimated the maize harvest at only 300,000 tonnes, half as much as expected and one-sixth of Zimbabwe’s minimum needs.

Mutasa was made minister for national security in April, putting him in charge of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Mugabe’s secret police. Many believe he is carrying out his threat to rid the population of Mugabe’s opponents, targeting the cities that voted overwhelmingly for the opposition in elections last March.

Youth militias dressed as riot police laughed last week as they smashed people’s homes and livelihoods with bulldozers and sledgehammers. Many were concrete houses where people had lived for years. Markets that have stood since 1945 were razed. The owners watched as everything they had worked for was destroyed in the space of an hour.

“A grave crime has been committed against poor and helpless people,” read a statement by some of Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic bishops. “We warn the perpetrators, history will hold you accountable.”

Some of the homeless have been taken to holding camps outside the city, such as Caledonia Farm. Police guard the barbed wire compounds.

Church workers have revealed that those inside are being subjected to political re-education, forced to shout party slogans and warned that they will not be given new plots for homes or licences for market stalls unless they join Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

Miloon Kothari, the UN special envoy on adequate housing, called the evictions “a new form of apartheid”. On Friday the White House joined the UN and the European Union in condemning the campaign.

Yet within Zimbabwe, reaction has been muted. This is a population that has been cowed by years of torture, rape and food deprivation, where up to 40% are infected with HIV.

A two-day mass “stay-away” from work fizzled out last week, leaving Mugabe triumphant and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in disarray.

The state control of media meant many workers were unaware of the stay-away. Police went to the homes of those working for utility companies and forced them to go to work.

Many within the opposition believe that they are in danger of becoming irrelevant if they do not act soon to topple Mugabe. Leading members are demanding that the party takes a more confrontational stance.

“Passive resistance has not worked,” said Nelson Chamisa, chairman of the MDC Youth League. “It is time to engage in active struggle.”

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