An African News Agency

This page from the BBC

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Satellite images have been released showing the wholesale destruction of a large community in Zimbabwe providing the clearest possible evidence to date of the devastating impact of the Zimbabwean government's policy of house demolitions. The images were commissioned to demonstrate the complete destruction of Porta Farm — a large, informal settlement that was established 16 years ago and had schools, a children's centre and a mosque. There is also graphic video footage showing the forced evictions taking place prior to the demolitions.

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For a month now, the BBC, CNN, ITV and others have been reporting what has been portrayed as one of the greatest humanitarian and human rights disasters in years. At least 200,000 people - sometimes this figure grows to 250,000 or even 300,000 - are said to have been forcibly evicted from slum areas of Harare in Zimbabwe. The figure peaked last week at 1.5 million, but yesterday the BBC reckoned that bulldozers were now "crashing through the homes of 500,000 people".

In fact, only about 1.2 million people live in Harare and no one is suggesting that half the population has fled in terror or that most of the city has been wrecked. So where are all these allegedly terrorised people? A few thousand have been filmed in makeshift camps but not many more. Who is trying to count the numbers? They are almost always attributed to an unnamed person in an unnamed UN agency. But read the only UN statement on the evictions and it says nothing of 200,000 people.

The evictions - which are clearly happening on a wide scale - have been seized on by the west, and the former colonial power Britain in particular, as another reason to demonise President Mugabe and further humiliate long-suffering Zimbabwe. It's open season on the Harare regime and it appears that anyone can say anything they like without recourse to accuracy or reality. Whipped into a frenzy of hypocritical outrage, the EU, Britain and the US, as well as the World Bank - all of which have been responsible for millions of evictions in Africa and elsewhere as conditions of infrastructure projects - have rushed to condemn the "atrocities".

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[ 06 June 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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The forcible eviction of 700,000 people from slums in Zimbabwe in 2005 was "a crime against humanity", according to independent legal opinion.

The human rights groups that sought the legal advice, say the issue could now be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

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The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions and another group, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, sought independent legal opinion.

This concluded that the evictions in Zimbabwe were a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population, as part of state policy.

"What happened in Zimbabwe was akin in magnitude to the Asian tsunami," Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Alec Muchadehma told reporters in The Hague.

The finding is that Operation Murambatsvina was a crime against humanity, and the UN Security Council therefore has authority to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.

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The programme to build new homes to replace those demolished has faltered, says Amnesty International in its 2007 annual report.

"By May (2006) one year after the programmes launch, only 3,325 houses have been built, compared to 92,460 housing structures destroyed in Operation Murambatsvina," it said.

In recent years, millions of Zimbabweans have left the country as it grapples with runaway inflation, high unemployment and food shortages.

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
Is anybody surprised that this is happening in a country run by an old Stalinist like Mugabe?

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No. The only thing that surprises me is those who attack Mugabe because he is the oppressive flavour-of-the-month in Washington and London.

The same NGO that was referred to in Free_Radical's link (the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions) is not quite as selective in its exposure of crime as George W. Bush and Tony Blair and their fans are. Here is a recent exposé about an old Stalinist Canadian mining company, Skye Resources, from January 2007:

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On 8 January 2007, the GAR (private police forces) and the armed forces evicted 80 Mayan-Q'eq'chi families from the community of La Pista and 228 families from La Union, in the region of El Estor, Izabal, Guatemala.

On 9 January, the community of La Revolución, also in El Estor, Isabal, was forcibly evicted, rendering 175 Q'eq'chi families homeless.

The eviction was carried out by 650 soldiers and police, accompanied by a private gray, white and blue helicopter, which flew low over the communities, intimidating the inhabitants.

The evicted families lost 18 homes which were burned and destroyed by chainsaws in the hands of individuals hired by the Guatemala Nickel Company (wholly owned subsidiary of Skye Resources Inc.), which claims to own the land on which these families have lived for generations. [...]

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Of course, we shouldn't talk about Canadian crimes of eviction in foreign lands, when it is so much more fun to talk about Mugabe's crimes in his own country.

ETA: If you have 10 min. to spare, watch this:

[ 23 May 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Originally posted by ceti:
Mumbai city and the Maharashtra state government cleared slums last year, making 300,000 people homeless (the biggest ever). There did not seem to be much denunciation of that, even though it was also quite brutal.

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So where is the international condemnation of this move?

Hell, while we're at it, what about Canadian outrage that their own companies and government were involved with the mass "resettlement" that took place to build the Three Gorges Dam in China.

[ 23 May 2007: Message edited by: laine lowe ]

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
Typical Unionist deflection. Totally unable to defend a Communist dictator.

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1. I don't defend Mugabe. I merely question those who robotically attack whomever Big Brother tells them to.

2. "Communist dictator!" You talk like some kind of Cold War dinosaur whose sleep was disturbed in an archeological dig. Don't forget to check carefully underneath your bed for Red Murderers before sleepy time tonight.

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Originally posted by laine lowe:

So where is the international condemnation of this move?

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We don't condemn George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Stephen Harper's friends for doing evil things.

We only condemn George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Stephen Harper's enemies for doing evil things.

I guess it's true that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

These threads predictably turn into monologues with scarce dialogue.

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Originally posted by Caissa:

These threads predictably turn into monologues with scarce dialogue.

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Interesting that you superciliously comment on the posters but don't make a single comment on the actual posts. I guess you're trying to prove your own point?

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Originally posted by Caissa:
You call it pointing out hypocrisy, I call it deflection.

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No, Bobolink called it "deflection" before you popped up here. He did so because his interest is to connect Mugabe's crimes with "Stalinism" and "Communism". I simply responded showing that home eviction and destruction are not unique to Communists - and that certain people shouldn't try so hard to religiously follow the Bush-Blair agenda that they are actually blinded to similar crimes much closer to home.

Given the widespread nature of such crimes against impoverished populations around the world, one really wonders whether the removal or departure of Mugabe will change anything on that front. You seem to think it would, but so far you have only contributed one 4-word sentence on the topic of this thread.

Will the western-backed mercenaries and corporate-colonialism in general flee the Congo's rich mineral districts if Mugabe goes ?.

Will Neo-Liberal Capitalism finally work somewhere in the world ?. Africa's poorest of poor nations in the world need socialism not what the IMF and World Bank and Washington consensus have already proven does not work in a range of still desperately poor countries.

What the West Doesn't Want to Know Zimbabwe's fight for justice

[ 24 May 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

We were told by guides in the park that the poverty in Zimbabwe is one of the reasons so many poachers cross the Chobe River to poach rhinos in Chobe National Park. It got so bad they have relocated all the rhinos to a different area of Botswana away from the border.

We stayed in Gabarone with some of my husband's family for a few days while who had just returned from attending a Southern Africa Swim meet in Zim. His cousin managed to smuggle out some Zim dollars, it's illegal to take the currency outside the country and it has an expiration date on it. The currency is good for at most about 6 months I believe, so people spend it as quick as they can. They are constantly removing zeros from bills and inflation is out of control. People can't put any money away in the bank because the government keeps devaluing the currency. The only way to be finacial safer is to be paid in American money which isn't an option for most people.

Our family in Botswana has many friends who have left Zimbabwe after losing their farms, and those farms are given to cronies of Mugabe who aren't farmers. This is causing serious food shortgages. Not that white farmers should have kept the land neccesarily but the land is being used as bribery and the people are suffering. It wasn't taken away from white farmers for the people but for paying off favorites.

I, like many friends, colleagues, and co-workers, actively supported the struggle of the people of South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe against apartheid, colonialism, and minority rule.

Today, the most aggressive imperialist regimes in the world - whose forebears opposed the struggle of those peoples - are beating the drums for freedom of Zimbabwe. Why?

That doesn't mean Robert Mugabe is not an oppressive dictator. It does, however, mean that progressive people need to ask lots of questions and not settle for easy answers.

Questions like the ones Fidel is asking.