| |
Back to Index
Urgent
appeal on ongoing forced evictions and destruction of housing settlements
throughout Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR)
June 07, 2005
Commissioner
Sanji M Monageng
Special
Rapportuer on Torture and Other
forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment
African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
90 Kairaba
Avenue
PO Box
673 Banjul
The Gambia
Fax: 267 3910 0200
Email: lawsociety@mega.bw
; sanjimonage@hotmail.com
Dear Commissioner
Monageng
URGENT APPEAL
ON ONGOING FORCED EVICTIONS AND DESTRUCTION OF HOUSING SETTLEMENTS
THROUGHOUT ZIMBABWE
We write in
our capacity as a registered organisation working for the promotion
and protection of human rights in Zimbabwe and having Observer Status
with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
We are calling
upon you in your esteemed capacity as the Special Rapportuer on
Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment
and the Rapporteur in Charge of Zimbabwe to make an urgent intervention
in Zimbabwe relating to the current ongoing forced evictions and
destruction of houses and livelihoods.
The government
of Zimbabwe, which is a Member State of the African Union and a
State Party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child,
has embarked on a devastating countrywide operation which has forced
many families out of their homes and rendered them homeless and
without any means of livelihood. Through the local authorities and
various law enforcement agencies, the government has destroyed everything
ranging from temporary housing structures, flea markets, market
stalls, clinics, children’s and orphans’ nursery playing centres.
The unlawful destructions have razed to the ground houses in Harare’s
suburbs of Hatcliffe, Mbare, Mufakose, and Chitungwiza, as well
as further afield in Bulawayo, Kariba, Chipinge, Beitbridge, Chinhoyi
and Victoria Falls, among others.
In Hatcliffe,
for instance the government destroyed a nursery and orphanage centre
which provided shelter to HIV/ AIDS orphans, which operated with
the support of well wishers and the help of the Catholic Church.
Further, a clinic which was distributing drugs and medication to
People Living With HIV and AIDS was destroyed, forcing many beneficiaries
of the programme to be at life threatening risk due to lack of supply
of medication. An estimated 6000 houses built by a local housing
cooperative were destroyed by the unlawful actions of the police
and the affected persons were never given a chance to object through
the lawful channels or in terms of the principles of natural justice.
In the violent,
arbitrary and brutal process of the destruction of houses over 22
000 people have been arbitrarily arrested, detained and made to
pay fines for contravening town and council by-laws, over 200 000
people have been left homeless and as the operation is still underway
an estimated 2,000,000 people could be affected.
The failure
by the government and the various city councils to provide the evicted
families with alternative accommodation has been of grave concern.
Currently some families from Hatcliffe and surrounding areas are
being taken to Caledonia Farm, where they are being kept in inhuman
and degrading conditions reminiscent of the concentration camps
during the colonial era in Zimbabwe and apartheid South Africa.
The operation
has caused an indescribable calamity of internally displaced persons,
with some taking shelter on roadsides, others being forcibly moved
to holding camps, and others choosing (for lack of any alternative)
to abandon their possessions and make their way at great expense
and hardship to remote rural areas. In the process, children are
being denied their education as they can no longer attend school,
while all affected persons have been negatively affected by the
denial of their rights to health, adequate sanitation facilities,
protection of the family as a unit, and the right to work, amongst
others. These combined impacts should clearly be seen as forcing
persons protected under the African Charter to exist in cruel, inhuman
and degrading conditions.
Even though
the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights does not explicitly
provide for the right to housing or shelter the Commission, in a
number of its decisions, has pronounced on the right to housing
being inextricably and impliedly protected through the cumulative
protection of other rights which are explicitly protected in the
Charter. From that understanding we therefore urge the Commission
and the Special Rapporteur to make urgent appeals to the government
of Zimbabwe on the need to protect the right to adequate housing,
as well as the other rights protected under the Charter and outlined
above.
Such conduct
by the government of Zimbabwe we believe amounts to imposing upon
its people a form of torture which is also patently cruel and inhuman
treatment of its own citizens and therefore we therefore strenuously
call for immediate urgent appeals from your offices to halt the
evictions and the attendant humanitarian calamity. In several international
forums, including the Inter-American Court and the European Court
of Human Rights similar cases have been ruled to amount to cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
We therefore
urge the Commission and the Special Rapporteur to call upon the
government of Zimbabwe urgently and remind it of its obligations
as a State Party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
In particular:
- the government
must be urged to immediately stop the forced evictions and ejectments
from the various settlements around the country as they are contrary
to international human rights conventions and in particular the
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and in terms of
Article 1 of the Charter to take all measures, legislative and
administrative, to ensure the full protection of the rights enshrined
in the Charter.
- that in instances
where the evictions have been carried out, the families within
the proximity of their former structures must be accorded by the
government basic temporary structures, facilities and amenities
to allow them to lead a humane life as a family in pursuance of
Article 5 whilst the government makes attempts to work out a final
destination of residency for these families to avoid internally
displacing them, or whilst the legality of the actions are challenged
to finality,
- it must be
impressed upon the government that the families have not been
provided with due protection of the law and the government of
Zimbabwe should provide legal support for those who intend to
pursue legal remedies against the decision to evict them and in
any event to provide adequate compensation to all affected by
the destructions in terms of Article 3 and 7 of the Charter,
- further the
government must be urged to allow all families to return to their
residences and to allow them to reconstruct their houses with
the help of the government as the families were abiding by the
laws of the land in terms of Article 12,
- that the
government must be urged to stop this culture of evicting people
under the guise of clean-up operations or for state functions
and events, as these evictions have caused social, economic strife
among the affected families to the extent of creating internally
displaced persons as they are being forced to go back "where
they came from". Some of the families have had a history
of being evicted, resettled, and evicted again by the government
on numerous occasions for various reasons. This is contrary to
Article 16 and 18 of the Charter,
- children
of school going age have had their educational activities disturbed
as some of the schools were destroyed to the ground, or they have
no shelter or homes. The recreational centres and orphanages were
not spared either in obvious violation of the rights of the child
as enshrined in Article 17 and 18 of the Charter
- these acts
of forcing several families, including women, men, children, the
elderly and the sick to be exposed to the elements during the
winter, to have no access to clean water and adequate food, proper
and adequate sanitary facilities amount to a violation of Article
5 of the Charter which unequivocally prohibits treatment of an
inhuman and degrading nature.
Finally,
as the Rapportuer in charge of Zimbabwe at the Commission, we hereby
request an urgent promotional visit to Zimbabwe to establish the
extent of the evictions and violations of the rights of thousands
of homeless Zimbabweans.
We
therefore call upon your offices to urgently impress upon the government
of Zimbabwe that their continued evictions and destruction of houses
and related structures is in violation of the African Charter on
Human and Peoples’ Rights as outlined above.
We
look forward to your urgent intervention in this matter in order
to prevent the ongoing and further violations of economic, social
and cultural rights of a vast number of the citizens of Zimbabwe.
Yours
faithfully
Arnold
Tsunga
Director
- Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights
Cc
Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’
Rights
Secretary,
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Permanent
Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs
Permanent
Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Visit the ZLHR
fact sheet
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
