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Churches cry foul as Zimbabwe police demolish homes in crackdown
Ecumenical News International (ENI)
June 02, 2005

http://www.eni.ch/highlights/news.shtml?2005/06

Churches in Zimbabwe have condemned the country’s police for demolishing human settlements deemed illegal, as well as homes and business premises throughout the country where authorities say criminal activities have taken place. The Zimbabwe National Pastors Conference (ZNPC), representing clerics from the country’s major churches, said the police action showed lack of compassion for human suffering and misery in a country where 80 per cent of the 12.5 million people are said to be unemployed.

The grouping said in its statement: "Our members who are doing pastoral work in areas targeted by this operation have reported that the action of the police was very provocative, offensive and unsympathetic to the feelings of the people." The multi-denominational group said: "We call upon this government to engage in a war against poverty and not against the poor." It noted: "The visibility of these street traders is simply a manifestation of the economic depression which we are experiencing. No amount of police action will sweep this current reality under the carpet."

In an exercise jointly mounted with local authorities said to be aimed at flushing out criminals, illegal foreign currency dealers and prostitutes, police have over the past two weeks razed to the ground residential properties, flea markets, fruit and vending stalls. In some cases they have destroyed entire settlements, including one on the southern outskirts of the capital Harare, which housed more than 10 000 residents. The police said that as of Tuesday, they had arrested more than 15 000 people in the operation code-named "Operation Restore Order", but independent sources said up to 23 000 people had been rounded up. The police had also seized goods from traders throughout the country such as clothes, sugar, milk, electric gadgets, petrol, diesel and foreign currency, all of which they said were being sold "on the black market".

Informal traders throughout the country have engaged the services of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) to sue the police and local authorities for loss of property and business. "Effectively the state is at the forefront of undermining the rule of law," Arnold Tsunga, director of the lawyer’s association, told the independent weekly Standard newspaper on 29 May. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe had earlier defended the police action, saying, "Our cities, including the capital Harare, had become havens for illicit and criminal activities which just could not be allowed to go on."

Mugabe on Wednesday met the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, James Morris, to discuss emergency food relief for Zimbabwe. "Three to four million people will need help in the next year," said Morris, in Johannesburg after leaving Harare. "The president said they intended to purchase 1.2 million tonnes of food." Last year Mugabe ordered most UN food deliveries to Zimbabwe to stop, saying the country was "choking" on its own grain.

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