“Police and troops have destroyed the homes of at least 200,000 destitute people in Zimbabwe’s cities over the past three weeks, in an action called ‘Operation Drive Out the Rubbish’,” reports Canada’s CBC. (BBC Video)
The NYT adds, “[T]he campaign, directed at as many as 1.5 million members of Zimbabwe’s vast underclass, spreads beyond Harare … is quickly evolving into a sweeping recasting of society, a forced uprooting of the very poorest city dwellers, who have become President Robert G. Mugabe’s most hardened opponents.” [ABOVE: NYT photo.]
Amnesty Int’l and the U.N. are focusing on the crisis.
And, did you know that the BBC has been banned from Zimbabwe since 2001, “for reporting lies about the land seizures” (from mostly white farmers)? And that that land grab has left Zimbabwe unable to feed its people? More below:
The CBC continues:
The government of President Robert Mugabe says the bulldozing operation was a necessary crackdown on crime and illegal housing in neighbourhoods populated by poor street traders.
[……………]
“The conditions are so bad in Zimbabwe, as we speak all the ingredients are there for a mass uprising, so he wants to preempt any possibility of civil unrest by getting people into the rural areas, emptying the cities,” said Basildon Peta, a journalist living in exile.
Almost 30,000 people have been arrested during the crackdown, despite protests from the United Nations over Mugabe’s tactics.
Zimbabwe was once an economic leader in Africa, but the country has not been able to feed itself properly over the past five years since Mugabe’s land redistribution program drove most white farmers from the country. …
CAPTION: Getrude Chirande stands inside the remains of her home which was destroyed by police in Harare, Zimbabwe Thursday, June 2, 2005. Zimbabwean police are under orders to destroy ‘illegal dwellings’ and vendors’ shacks as part of a campaign to clean up the city. The opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) party alleges that the blitz is aimed at provoking unrest in the country. (AP Photo/Yahoo)
Amnesty’s June 2 statement:
of their broken houses…children screaming, sick people in agony.”
– Eyewitness account of the scene following one mass eviction in Zimbabwe
…………………………………………….
As United Nations Special Envoy James Morris visits Zimbabwe to discuss the country’s severe food shortages, Amnesty International called on the Government of Zimbabwe to immediately halt mass forced evictions that have left whole communities homeless and destroyed thousands of livelihoods.
Over the past two weeks the Government of Zimbabwe has orchestrated the forced eviction of thousands of informal traders and families living in informal settlements across the country as part of a crackdown called ‘Operation Murambatsvina’ ‘ widely translated as ‘drive out the rubbish’ but being referred to by police as ‘operation restore order’.
Evictions are being carried out without notice and without court orders in a flagrant disregard for due process and the rule of law. During the forced evictions police and other members of the security forces are using excessive force — burning homes, destroying property and beating individuals.
On the night of Thursday 26 May, more than 10,000 people were forcibly driven from their homes in the informal settlement of Hatcliffe Extension in northern Harare. Police reportedly destroyed these homes, leaving the settlement’s families destitute and sleeping in the open during Zimbabwe’s winter. Many of those evicted were actually placed at Hatcliffe Extension by the government.
‘We have had reports of heart-wrenching scenes of ordinary Zimbabweans who have had their homes and livelihoods completely destroyed crying on the street in utter disbelief,’ said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme. ‘We have even had reports of police forcing people to destroy their own homes.’
‘Amnesty International is appalled by this flagrant disregard for internationally recognized human rights. Forced evictions — without due process, legal protection, redress and appropriate relocation measures, are completely contrary to international human rights law.’
Thousands of people ‘ mainly informal traders ‘ have been arrested during the crackdown, on the grounds that their businesses are illegal. Their goods have been destroyed or confiscated ‘ although many are reported to have been in possession of licences to operate. Human rights lawyers are now taking court action on behalf of the traders, most of whom were forced to pay fines to secure their release.
‘The forced closure of informal businesses ‘ the only livelihood option left for many in Zimbabwe’s shattered economy ‘ has pushed thousands into an increasingly vulnerable position — a fact that is particularly disturbing in light of the high levels of poverty and food shortages already present in Zimbabwe.’
‘The Government of Zimbabwe is acting in blatant violation of civil, political, economic and social rights guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights ‘ and many more people are in danger of injury and homelessness as the forced evictions continue,’ said Kolawole Olaniyan.
‘We call on the government to immediately cease the forced evictions. Those who have been forcibly evicted and had property destroyed should be granted full legal protection and redress and should receive adequate compensation,’ said Kolawole Olaniyan. ‘As a matter of urgency the government must ensure that all those evicted have access to shelter, food and safe water.’
Background
In September 2004 Amnesty International reported on the attempted forced eviction of thousands of people from Porta Farm, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Harare, during which police reportedly misused tear gas against residents. The police were acting in defiance of a court order prohibiting the eviction.
According to eye-witness testimonies the police fired tear gas directly into the homes of the Porta Farm residents. At least 11 people died in the following weeks. Amnesty International has repeatedly called for a full investigation into the events and subsequent deaths at Porta Farm, but no investigation is known to have been carried out.
Amnesty International is very concerned that Porta Farm may again be targeted in the current ‘clean-up’ operation.
For further information, please see link.
This is absolutely devestating. This type of cleansing is appalling. I’ll definitely be following this story to keep an eye on how my (Canadian) government responds to this. Thank you, Susan.
Mugabe must be insane. Maybe he and George can share a prison cell.
I’d like to be a fly on that wall.
Mugabe is insane. It goes without saying that his ego is off the charts. Most of the rest of the world knows this. He has minimal support in Africa. If I remember correctly the South African president, Mbeki gives him some support, and the French have allowed him to visit, but have maintained some distance.
One of the things I miss most when I come to the US to visit family is the lack of international news. One of the things India does better than the US is international news, both on tv and in the printed press.
I need to add that he is at least as bad as Saddam. The US just ignores Africa.
Umm, the US doesn’t have any news. Unless, of course, you’re interested in the trials and travails of runaway brides and disfigured pop stars.
We can’t even get real news of the US. Iternational news? You mean there’s somewhere that’s not the US? Can’t be true, Hannity says so.
Those poor people * sigh *
‘Drive out the rubbish’ dehumanises terribly, and can enable such brutality.
All through the build up to invading Iraq, while we were told how terrible Saddam is, we kept saying ‘What about Mugabe’? ‘If being a brutal tyrant is justification, what about Mugabe?’ I wrote to my (anti iraq war) member of parliament with the same question, and his answer was ‘Mugabe doesn’t have oil’
Unlike many of Africa’s woes, this one isn’t the result of inter-ethnic tension as the majority of the country is populated by the Shona peoples, both the bulldozer drivers and those being bulldozed.
Frankly this is just the end result of a political idea gone bad. Those farmers did more than just feed the country, they provided the exports by which the government obtained hard currency in order to import so many important things, including food not grown locally.
And while the British and western press waxes on about the mistreatment of white farmers as being the principle cause of financial misery, I’d say that Zim’s disastrous involvement in the DR Congo war (97-02) played a pretty significant role as well.
Great Britain has its own sordid history in this country but Mugabe has turned from being a freedom fighter and a uniter of his people to a wrinkled old despot of the worst order.
And in the name of a political ideal, too many African leaders keep stepping up to the plate to defend him, from S. African President Thabo Mbeki to Tanzanian President William Mkapa. It’s almost as if some leaders can’t let go of Mugabe as a freedom fighter for Africans and realize that sometimes the devil isn’t your former colonizer, it’s a devil that looks just like you.
This is a human disaster on a tsunami-like scale… and as with all power struggles, its the ordinary people who suffer. Whether in Harare, Pretoria or Beijing, I’m quite sure Mugabe will live out his days in peace and comfort…
Pax
Will the newly announced debt relief package from the G8 help at all? Is Zimbabwe one of the beneficiaries?
The NYTimes story has this
They are Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. All must take anticorruption measures.
The short answer is no. The countries on the list are: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
You’ll notice there are two C. American nations and two S. American ones (Guyana and Bolivia).
Pax
The answer is that debt relief will be available once corruption has been abolished and good goernance established (ie one Mugabe and his corrupt conies get out of the country and a properly dmocratic government is in power).
There is an excellent article in today’s Sunday Times which is based on eye-witness reports. Any independent journalist is liableto be persecuted in Zim, not just the BBC. The Times article contains some very worrying information for those who have been following events in Zimbabwe:
“Re-education camps” are as sinister as they sound. Mugabe has been brutalising the young in “youth camps” where rape, murder and violence is used to estabish their “allegiance” to Mugabe. Such brutalisation leads to this behaviour:
Mbeki has had good reason for trying to mediate with Mugabe, not least to avoid his own country being completely swamped by refugees rather than the million or so currently there. Zambia is dependent on Zim for major transport links – aircraft from the UK go to Lusaka via Harare and the main land route is through Harare to Beit Bridge on the South Africa border.
If the leaders of the neighbouring countries have played it soft with Mugabe in the hopes he can be reformed, it is time for them to come off the fence.
Soj, I want to address some of your points in detail.
Actually there is an element of tribalism in this, particularly against the Matabele. Mugabe’s anti white campaign is just as racist as any KKK activity in the US and can with some justification be compared to Hitler’s early persecutions of the Jews.
Zimbabwe was a large exporter of food to the region as well as tobacco. Of course a virtual stopping of Zim exports of tobacco is very good news for US producers which the cynical might think is one reason for Bush not taking a lead on this. It was really the polical idea which was bad in the first place. The reason Mugabe started the program against white farmers was precisely because his regime had become corrupt and the economy faltered.
Arguably the excursion in to DR Congo was yet another diversion from the troubles at home rather than a cause of them. I am afraid you have brought into the Mugabe line on the white farmers. The British press and IV have focussed far more on the treatment of the farmers; black workers and the rural population. Ironically Mugabe has only recently been asking white farmers to return from exile.
Land ownership was racially inequitable however there were very good reasons for supporting a peaceful tranfer of ownership. The white farmers were in fact at the centre of a complex social system which was usually benevolent to the workers, even if one must decry the servant/master relationship. Most farmers gave housing, garden space, medical facilities and basic education for the workers’ children as part of what they saw as thier duty to their workers, many of whom had generations of working for the same family. When the farmers were thrown off the land, the workers were usually burned out of their homes and left in similar situations to these urban dwellers. For the most part the taken over farms have either been split up to large mubers of untrained “war veratns” if the land was less attractive with the more productive or commercially attractive farms being given whole to Mugabe’s hangers on.
So very sad. And more so because of the promise of progress that was there when Mugabe first came to power. He was the darling of Africa-watchers. I attended a formal awards dinner in New York in the late ’80s at which he was lauded as the hope for the new Africa. He was a stimulating and moving speaker. His wife wore a most interesting hat, rather like the ones Good Queen Bess wears, but smaller. The audience sang the Zimbabwean national anthem, the words of which I’ve now forgotten except for the pronunciation of “Ahhf-ree-kaa.”
Everyone had such high hopes. Then came the land “reforms,” and many, many warnings that they would result in economic and social dislocation, food shortages, and possible starvation. Then came the expulsion of the BBC reporters for telling the truth.
Truth be told, Susan, when I looked at the picture and read your first two grafs, I thought, This is what is could come to under Bush. It’s the Israeli tactic of dislocating any opposition physically, so it can’t acquire critical mass.
You probably heard “Ishe Komborera Africa” which is sung in different languages as the anthem in several African countries. It translates as “God Bless Africa” and forms the first part of the South African anthem where it starts in Zulu and continues in Sesotho (the last 4 stanzas are the old anthem “Die stem van Suid-Afrika” in Afrikaans and then English) The Zulu is “Nkosi sikele iAfrika” The new Zimbabwean anthem “Blessed be the Land of Zimbabw” was adopted in 1994 tho it is hardly known outside the country.
“You probably heard “Ishe Komborera Africa” which is sung in different languages as the anthem in several African countries.”
Yes, I think that was it. Thank you.
Funny addendum: About six months later I was at a private party in the country, talking with a couple who had just returned from a year’s teaching in Zimbabwe. Enthusiastic conversation, and then we three very white people launched into a spontaneous rendition of that song.
We drew some rather strange looks from the others present. LOL
And on a snarkier note…
When did they elect Giuliani Mayor?