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Operation Murambatsvina - Countrywide evictions of urban poor - Index of articles
Zimbabwe
capital destroys homeless shelters-lawyer
Reuters
June 15, 2006
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6QT5Q4?OpenDocument&rc=1&cc=zwe
HARARE -
Harare authorities on Thursday demolished informal shelters
and market stalls in a small settlement of about 150 people, leaving
victims of last year's government slum crackdown homeless once more,
a lawyer said.
Rights groups
say thousands of Zimbabweans still live in poverty more than a year
after President Robert Mugabe's government destroyed houses and
informal businesses in urban towns in a drive it said was meant
to root out crime.
The United Nations,
which was extremely critical of the operation, said it made more
than 700,000 people homeless.
On Thursday
a human rights lawyer said municipal workers razed informal shacks
at a Harare settlement housing people driven out of their homes
in last year's crackdown.
"These were
makeshift shelters which were home to about 150 people. We had made
a High Court application for an interdict on behalf of some of the
residents but we were rather late," said the lawyer, who asked not
to be identified.
The main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says last year's demolitions
were aimed against its urban support base, which has voted largely
for the opposition since 2000 as the country battles a deepening
economic crisis blamed on the government. Mugabe denies the charges.
One faction
of the MDC, which has since split into two, condemned Thursday's
action.
Police and council
officials were not immediately reachable for comment.
Critics say
a government rebuilding exercise to replace the destroyed homes
has dragged on too slowly, leaving many of the victims facing a
second Southern Hemisphere winter with inadequate shelter.
Last month Zimbabwe
rights groups criticised neighbouring countries for failing to condemn
strongly the slum clearances, which they say worsened the lot of
urban residents already facing rampant inflation, chronic food and
fuel shortages and rising unemployment.
Mugabe denies
responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic crisis, and in turn blames
it on a campaign of sabotage he says his opponents have launched
as payback for his controversial drive to forcibly redistribute
white-owned farms among blacks.
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