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Zimbabwe:
How much longer will this defiance of the United Nations and violation
of international law be tolerated?
Sokwanele
March 05, 2006
http://www.sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/howmuchlongerwillthisdefiance_5march2006.html
Cowdray Park
on the north-western fringe of the city of Bulawayo is a relatively
modern high-density township, created some years ago to accommodate
the city's burgeoning population. Along with its settled resident
population the township also plays host today to some of the internally
displaced persons (IDPs), rendered homeless by the infamous Operation
Murambatsvina ("clean out the filth") which commenced in May 2005.
It does so, not because that was the way those who planned and directed
that military-style operation wanted it - their intention was to
clear the urban "filth" out of the cities altogether and forcibly
relocate them to remote rural areas - but rather because a few of
the victims managed to escape the dragnet and, with the help of
local church and humanitarian workers, to secure the most precarious
lodging close to the city.
Some of the
IDPs who initially lodged in Cowdray Park after the "Mugabe Tsunami"
have since moved on.
Who knows -
or cares - where these wretched victims, deprived of shelter, food
or any support network, have now taken refuge. The Mugabe regime
certainly cares not one jot for their welfare. For their part those
who planned and executed this criminal venture have achieved their
objective in removing them from a settled way of life in the city
environs and dispersing them to remote, rural locations where their
desperate plight will be hidden from public view. Moreover they
can be reasonably confident that henceforth all the victims' energies
will be devoted to the daily struggle to stay alive - with no time
or opportunity to support angry street protests or the food riots
the military were anticipating. Many have died along the way, succumbing
either to malnutrition or one of the many diseases spawned by their
unsanitary living conditions. Those few who have made the effort
to monitor the IDPs progress or provide them with emergency food
rations, testify that a significant number of young to middle-aged
victims have simply given up all hope and died of deep despair.
Eight families
whose homes at Killarney (on the far side of the city) were flattened
by Mugabe's storm troops were later relocated from a government
transit camp to makeshift accommodation at Cowdray Park. There they
were housed temporarily in tents provided by the Red Cross. That
they were not taken and dumped in a remote rural area like so many
other victims was a tacit admission by the authorities that these
eight families had no connection whatsoever with any rural area.
In fact most of them could trace their ancestry back to Malawian
roots. They have no known relatives in Zimbabwe.
A visit to these
displaced people today would reveal that, though they have some
shelter from the elements and are therefore better off than many,
they are still living in abject poverty and in the most appalling
conditions. When our reporter visited the site recently he found
ten persons from two families crowded into one of the tents. The
fabric of the tents is worn and lets in water during heavy rain
showers.
The muddy conditions
have also provided a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, which
are present in large numbers and torment the inhabitants by night
and day. Our reporter called on a cool and wet day. He was invited
to shelter by the fire in a low corrugated iron structure which
serves as a kitchen.
Crouched there
he spoke to some of the children who have been forced to make this
their temporary home. He was amazed to discover that some were attending
a school nearby - fees provided by Christian friends - and one little
girl was even coming first in her grade. Our reporter confesses
to being both amazed and humbled by the resilience shown by these
youngsters. Somehow the trauma scars and deep insecurity of their
parents have not yet transferred to them.
But this may
soon change because the Red Cross have given notice that they want
their tents back. The eight destitute families will have to move
on - again - but where? Without any resources of their own, without
family to turn to or any claim to urban or rural land, they have
become totally dependent on others for their welfare - indeed for
their very survival from day to day.
By a cruel irony
the Red Cross tents stand right alongside some new permanent housing
units hastily constructed by the regime under its much vaunted "Operation
Garikai" or "Hlalani Kuhle" - a reconstruction programme they claim
was intended to provide housing for those who had been evicted from
their homes under Operation Murambatsvina. In June 2005, under intense
pressure from the United Nations, the regime claimed it had set
aside USD 300 million to build 1.2 million houses, promising to
build 4,900 houses within a few months. The reality was, and is,
very different of course. Not only has Hlalani Kuhle provided but
an infinitesimally small number of the housing units promised, but
the regime has imposed financial and income qualifications on applicants
which effectively exclude all those whom it was claimed the scheme
would benefit. In December 2005 the international human rights group
Human Rights Watch published its findings that "the number of houses
being built was negligibly small compared to the hundreds of thousands
of persons rendered homeless by the evictions and so far few houses
have been completed."
In the same
report entitled "Evicted and Forsaken" Human Rights Watch also noted
that their own research "indicates that Operation Garikai has little
to do with humanitarian relief effort, as the vast majority of the
internally displaced will not be among its beneficiaries, as they
are unlikely to meet the criteria for ownership of the new houses."
Invariably those
moving into the few completed units have come from the ranks of
the army, the police and civil service - many of whom already have
other homes elsewhere. It is yet another example of ZANU PF patronage
at the expense of those in desperate need. We ourselves are yet
to discover one single instance of a genuine victim of Operation
Murambatsvina being offered a house constructed under the so-called
reconstruction programme.
When asked to
comment one of the soldiers guarding the incomplete building site
at Cowdrey Park, who gave his name as Mataviri, confirmed that there
was no prospect of any of the homeless families sheltering in the
adjacent Red Cross tents being allocated one of the new units. Enquiries
at the housing department of the city council revealed further that
they had not been consulted nor their own long waiting lists of
homeless families even considered in the process of allocating the
new units.
To make matters
worse the army and the building contractors who constructed the
new housing units at Cowdray Park chose to ignore the planning by-laws
and professional advice offered by the local authority.
They completed
the structures before laying the sewer system, only to find that
they had built on bedrock. Were they to use dynamite now to break
up the rock in order the install the required sewage pipes they
would severely damage the completed houses. A serious question therefore
remains whether anyone will benefit from this particular development
which has been executed in such a shabby and unprofessional manner.
So what kind
of future faces the eight displaced families about to be moved on
again from the tents they have been occupying at Cowdray Park? Their
prospects are indeed bleak. That they were better off living in
their own (albeit inadequate) homes at Killarney before the regime's
vicious campaign of evictions, goes without saying. Indeed out of
sheer desperation, some displaced persons have returned to Killarney
to sleep in their makeshift structures by night and spend each day
on the move, dodging Mugabe's riot police. But this is clearly not
an option to be recommended. What then can these evictees do ? Or
rather, given their own complete powerlessness and the regime's
callous disregard of their plight, what can others do to help them?
Before attempting
to answer that question one must take account of the scale of the
disaster caused by the Mugabe Tsunami. The United Nations Special
Envoy deployed to Zimbabwe by the U.N. Secretary-General in June
2005, estimated that 700,000 people lost their shelter, livelihood
or both as a result of Operation Murambatsvina, and that about 570,000
of them had been internally displaced. But that massive displacement
came on top of years of ZANU PF misrule which had already created
tens of thousands of internally displaced people. Between 1999 and
2004 large numbers of people were forced to move from their homes
due to an escalation in political violence and state-sponsored human
rights violations across the country. The largest single group so
affected were the farm workers who were chased off the commercial
farms on which they had been employed, some for several generations.
In December 2003 the U.S. Committee for Refugees estimated that
more than 100,000 people were internally displaced in Zimbabwe.
So to the number of IDPs created by the 2005 blitzkrieg must be
added the huge number of those systematically targeted for forced
removal in the preceding years.
Kofi Annan,
the U.N. Secretary-General's assessment that Operation Murambatsvina
had done a "catastrophic injustice" to the poorest citizens of Zimbabwe,
was therefore no overstatement. After carrying out a competent and
professional assessment of the situation on the ground, his Special
Envoy Anna Tibaijuka, had already concluded that the operation had
"precipitated a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions" from
which it would take several years to recover. At the same time she
called on the government to "recognize the virtual state of emergency"
that prevailed across the country and to take urgent measures to
provide relief for the victims.
Eight months
after the evictions it is plain for all to see that the Mugabe regime
has no intention of providing the relief so urgently required. Even
worse, they are in denial even to the extent of denying there is
a crisis. Consequently they have deliberately obstructed efforts
by the U.N. and the international community to provide humanitarian
assistance and protection for the victims. To quote again from the
report "Evicted and Forsaken":
"In blatant
disregard of the recommendations of the U.N. Special Envoy and the
requirements of international law as reflected in the Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement, the government of Zimbabwe has denied
international humanitarian agencies access to the majority of the
internally displaced, and deliberately obstructed the provision
of international assistance and protection to the IDPs. The authorities
prevented the U.N. and other international agencies from providing
tents or other temporary shelter to the displaced and prevented
the distribution of food to people displaced by the evictions."
Human Rights
Watch noted the "concerted effort (of the authorities) to coerce
the people displaced by the evictions to leave the cities and move
to the rural areas". The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), a once
professional force now shamelessly used by Mugabe to execute his
arbitrary and often unlawful commands, resorted to threats, harassment
and beatings of the internally displaced in order to achieve this
objective. At the same time the regime applied pressure upon the
humanitarian agencies not to provide shelter or food to those who
chose to remain in the urban areas.
The rural areas
to which the IDPs were effectively banished are in most cases impoverished
and already overpopulated relative to the numbers which the land
will support. Their arrival therefore is not welcomed by those already
scratching out a meager existence. Social services and economic
opportunities are generally minimal. The obstacles facing those
dumped in these locations without any support system whatsoever
are overwhelming. The closest analogy that comes to mind is the
programme of forced removals under apartheid rule in South Africa,
under which whole communities were relocated from land designated
for white occupation and literally dumped on arid patches of the
veldt to cope as best the could. Indeed there are some striking
similarities between Mugabe's doctrinaire social engineering policies
and the brutal forced removals conceived by the architects of apartheid.
Not only does
the Mugabe regime act in blatant disregard of the wise counsel of
the United Nations; it is also in violation of both national and
international law. Not without good reason did the U.N. Special
Envoy refer in her report to the regime's "disregard (of) several
provisions of national and international legal frameworks," and
recommend that those responsible for the injury caused by the operation
be held to account Specifically the regime's obstruction of international
humanitarian assistance contravenes the U.N. Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement which establish the right of "international
humanitarian organizations and other appropriate actors ... to offer
their services in support of the internally displaced" and call
on the national authorities to consider such offers in good faith,
"particularly when the authorities concerned are unable or unwilling
to provide the required humanitarian assistance."
The African
Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) at its recent meeting
in Banjul, The Gambia, expressed itself to be "alarmed at the number
of internally displaced persons and the violations of fundamental
individual and collective rights resulting from the forced evictions
being carried out by the government of Zimbabwe." The ACHPR urged
the regime "to cease the practice of forced evictions throughout
the country, and to adhere to its obligations under the African
Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other international human
rights instruments to which Zimbabwe is a party." They also urged
compliance "without further delay" with the recommendations of the
U.N. Special Envoy made in her report of July 2005.
The stage has
been set therefore for international action to address the issues
raised by Operation Murambatsvina and, given the suffering of the
hundreds of thousands of victims which is not only continuing but
intensifying daily, it is incumbent on the international community
to act without delay.
Three things
are now crystal clear:
- The Mugabe
regime acted illegally and remains in violation of national and
international law and in defiance of the United Nations
- The regime
is obstructing the international relief effort at the same time
as it has shown itself unable or unwilling to provide the humanitarian
assistance so urgently required
- The suffering
of the victims is meanwhile intensifying
The case for
urgent and concerted action by the international community is a
compelling one. Moreover the U.N.'s own world-wide experience of
assisting displaced people in crisis situations has already shown
that, faced with an uncooperative regime like Mugabe's, a slow or
muted response only compounds the problem. A comprehensive survey
on the U.N. response to IDP crises in nine different countries undertaken
some years ago by the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Human
Affairs and the Brookings Institution-John Hopkins SAIS Project
on Internal Displacement in fact concluded that situations "where
access is denied and the displacement problem ignored or minimized
... require exposure to public scrutiny and a more assertive response
from U.N. agencies on the ground and from U.N. headquarters and
the Security Council."
To quote again
from the Human Rights Watch report "Evicted and Forsaken" and in
fact the final sentence of that measured and careful analysis: "The
plight of people displaced by the Zimbabwean government as a result
of Operation Murambatsvina cannot be overlooked any further. It
must generate a sense of outrage sufficient to trigger concerted
action to protect and assist the displaced."
Doubtless the
few caring human beings who have been assisting the eight stranded
families at Cowdray Park will continue to do the little they can
to reduce their suffering, and we applaud their efforts. But we
are faced here with a far bigger crisis than any number of humane
individuals on the ground can ever cope with. It is a tragedy of
immense proportions which can only be addressed adequately by the
international community through the United Nations. And the time
to act is now.
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