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Why the deafening silence on Robert Mugabe's purge of the poor?
K Rennie, Cape Town
June 13, 2005

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=331&fArticleId=2555128

*This letter was published in the Cape Times, South Africa

The current number of people rendered homeless in the cities of Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe's bulldozers, has now reached a conservatively estimated 250 000.

An unknown number have been deprived of their income. 23 000 arrested. And so far, four have died of the cold and/or hunger. The bulldozers are still busy.

Mugabe justified his actions by claiming that he is cleaning up the cities. On a small point of policy: the regulation of street trading and enforcement of housing regulations in Zimbabwe is a matter for the municipal authorities, and is arguably not in the remit of national government.

The policy of municipal authorities in Zimbabwe on urban poverty alleviation - policy supported by, among others, the United Nations Municipal Development Programme and Habitat - has for some time been to support Zimbabwean urbanites' efforts at upliftment, through informal sector employment and self-help housing.

This policy has been the result of implicit recognition of an incapacity within the formal sector to provide employment for them, and an inadequacy in the housing allocations from central governments coffers to house them.

In any event, as a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and member of the Commission on Human Rights, Mugabe is in breach of international human rights law - wherein forced evictions constitute a gross violation of human rights (UN Human Rights Commission, June 3).

Both the UN Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International have called for the evictions to cease and for compensation and assistance to be given.

These are organisations which even our current government could not accuse of having a neo-colonial agenda. You may remember a time when our current political elite actually set much store by their calls for action.

But, perhaps it is now true to say of the ANC, that to them some people's human rights are more important than others. And the rights of the poor are apparently least important of all.

The ANC government, it seems, is so supportive of Mugabe's current "clean-up" that it kindly supplied spare parts which will enable Mugabe's armed forces to continue their intimidation of would-be protesters by hovering overhead in military helicopters - as they did last week - according to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) (BBC News, June 9).

Perhaps most shocking of all is our media's response. Almost overnight, 250 000 people are made homeless and large numbers income-less in a neighbouring country.

At best, our newspapers have offered us a story from the wire services, or syndicated from one of the international newspapers.

Compare this to the comparative hue and cry in the South African media at the plight of the (need I say white?) farmers at the height of the government-sanctioned land invasions in Zimbabwe. Where is the analysis of Mugabe's motives and actions?

Is the South African public really going to be fed the rather dubious line that these evictions and closures are not politically motivated? Does it not strike our newspapers as coincidental that it is in the opposition MDC strongholds that this "clean-up" is being conducted?

But, at least the newspapers have given the story some coverage - on television: virtual silence.

Once again: our neighbours, the workers and the poorest of the poor, have been made homeless, without income, without assistance, in mid-winter.

These are real people. Four have already died. Many more will die of cold and hunger alone. But where will it end? It is perhaps timely to recall the tens of thousands of dissenting voices that Mugabe silenced in Matabeleland, who "disappeared" in the early 1980s. We must not let these people disappear. We must speak out.

Or by our silence, we are surely complicit.

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