Debate has persisted in academic, political and public circles worldwide on the motives behind the ZANU-PF governments Operation Murambatsvina in 2005 during which houses and informal sector structures in Zimbabwe were condemned as illegal after which they were demolished leaving thousands of people homeless and destitute. The government and its apologists justified the operation on grounds of eliminating vice and squalor in the urban and peri-urban areas while independent analysts condemned it as a politically-motivated blitz meant to punish supporters of opposition political parties. These...