Demolition+blitz+in+Harare,+Sunday+Times

Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 26 June 2005
=Inside Mugabe’s new horror=

writes Dingilizwe Ntuli in Harare **
 * Demolition blitz leaves a million people homeless and destitute,

HUMAN rights groups and non-governmental organisations have warned of a massive humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe following the destruction of more than 300000 homes by President Robert Mugabe’s government in the past month.

The destruction of the homes, part of a clean-up campaign called “Operation Drive Out Filth”, has displaced more than a million people. Two children were killed when their houses were bulldozed and more than 40000 people have been arrested.

The displaced have been moved to strictly controlled transit camps with few facilities. Others have simply set up homes on roadsides and river banks.

There are fears of disease epidemics in the camps and informal settlements. Thousands of children have been forced out of school.

In Harare, some refugees have set up home on the banks of the polluted Mukuvisi River, which runs through the city. For years industrial companies have dumped toxic waste in it.

Women and children are among the worst affected by the campaign — ostensibly aimed at ridding the city of shanty structures, crime and corruption.

On a cold winter’s day, widowed Janet Chinyanga and her two children were huddled in a plastic shack pondering the future. Their rented backyard dwelling in neighbouring Mbare had been razed, leaving them stranded.

While several thousand displaced people were dumped at Caledonia Farm, a holding camp about 30km east of Harare, Chinyanga chose to stay at the riverside in the hope that she could sneak back to Mbare Rural Bus Terminal to sell her wares.

She was one of thousands of vendors whose economic lifeline was cut by the clean-up campaign.

“I was supporting my family by selling boiled eggs, peanuts and vegetables. With my house crushed and market stall destroyed, God knows how I will survive with my girls. I just don’t understand what’s happening in this country any more,” Chinyanga said.

Her daughters, Anesu, 6, and Tarriro, 8, have stopped going to school because they have no money.

The situation is dire at the Mukuvisi River. There is no safe drinking water. People wash in the polluted river and relieve themselves in the bushes.

The 33-year-old mother’s predicament is similar to that of other desperate families. Her children join a growing band of youngsters who brave the winter cold to beg on the streets.

Most displaced people shun the holding camps because there is no way of making a living there and they are as squalid as the streets.

With political bickering and local red tape hindering relief efforts, the plight of displaced people is set to worsen.

The humanitarian disaster looms at a time when all Zimbabweans are suffering. A six-year economic recession has been marked by commodity shortages, rampant inflation and rising unemployment.

“Many children are now without shelter during winter while others have been separated from their parents and caregivers, schooling has been widely disrupted, access to water is difficult and respiratory and diarrhoeal diseases are a real threat,” said Festo Kavishe, the United Nations Children’s Fund’s representative in Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean government, however, says the number of people made homeless is only 120000. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged more international attention to the campaign yesterday, saying the fate of tens of thousands of people left homeless was a human rights matter that concerned everyone.

Speaking after meeting President Thabo Mbeki, the EU’s top official said he was disappointed with the African Union’s (AU) decision on Friday not to condemn the five-week demolition campaign in Zimbabwe, one of its members, because it was an “internal” matter.

“We think that when it comes to matters of human rights, those questions are not purely internal,” Barroso said. “Questions of human rights should be the concern of all people. These are universal values and everybody should respect these values.”

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi slammed the evictions yesterday.

“The [Zimbabwean] government has convinced itself that it lost the working-class vote in the urban areas because of the informal sector, which has been providing income to people in the wake of the almost 70% unemployment rate there. Destroying these homes and structures destroyed the last form of income these people had,” Vavi said.

“We are outraged. Two children actually died during the demolitions. Those responsible should be charged with murder.”

Vavi also slammed the AU’s refusal to condemn the crackdown, saying it was taking “African solidarity” too far — “to the point that they deny reality”.

“The AU should have acted in the way the UN secretary-general did. It should have sent a mission to Zimbabwe to establish what is happening. All they remind us of is their policy of non-interference. The AU must not operate like the old OAU [Organisation for African Unity].”

Zimbabwe’s Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube also slammed the AU’s response and, on Friday, called for Mugabe’s arrest and prosecution.

Speaking from the Vatican, Ncube alleged that Zimbabwe’s government planned to drive disaffected urban voters back to the famine-hit countryside for political re-education, as the Pol Pot regime did in Cambodia in the 1970s, Reuters reports. Ncube accused African leaders of standing idly by.

Ministers of the G8 rich nations called on Zimbabwe to “abide by the rule of law and respect human rights”.

The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, an international human rights organisation, said the destruction of homes was a crime against humanity.

Human rights activist Reginald Machaba-Hove said: “I can definitely confirm that there has been absolutely no warning; some people were given just five minutes to vacate their homes.

“Our concern is that it is mainly the poor, women, young children and the elderly, [who have been affected]. And in a country with a high HIV prevalence in the adult population, you are also talking about people who are ill.”

Mbeki said yesterday he had discussed the matter on Friday with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who had appointed a special envoy to investigate. The envoy would prepare a report “and then we’ll act on that”, the President said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said yesterday that South Africa was not ignoring events in Zimbabwe, but was at a loss as to what to do.

“We are trying to find a solution, but the problem is that we have done everything we possibly can. We can’t work out what else is expected of us,” he said.

“We will see what the envoy says. It is a difficult one for us,” he conceded. — Additional reporting by Charmeela Bhagowat


 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=ST6A127308