ZIMBABWE: Stinging UN report condemns evictions

Despite a UN report condemning the Zimbabwean government’s programme of forced evictions that has affected 700,000 people, Local Government and Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo has defended the operation.

Chombo, a key proponent of Operation Murambatsvina (‘Clean Out Garbage’), told IRIN that the people evicted from their homes were in illegal settlements, “and I don’t think the UN can sanction illegality”.

The report by UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka called on the government to stop the demolitions of homes and markets, pay reparations to those who had lost housing and livelihoods and punish those who, “with indifference to human suffering” carried out the evictions, according to the UN news service.

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JOHANNESBURG, 22 Jul 2005 (IRIN) – Despite a UN report condemning the Zimbabwean government’s programme of forced evictions that has affected 700,000 people, Local Government and Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo has defended the operation.

Chombo, a key proponent of Operation Murambatsvina (‘Clean Out Garbage’), told IRIN that the people evicted from their homes were in illegal settlements, “and I don’t think the UN can sanction illegality”.

The report by UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka called on the government to stop the demolitions of homes and markets, pay reparations to those who had lost housing and livelihoods and punish those who, “with indifference to human suffering” carried out the evictions, according to the UN news service.

“The government of Zimbabwe should set a good example and adhere to the rule of law before it can credibly ask its citizens to do the same. Operation Restore Order breached both national and international human rights law provisions guiding evictions, thereby precipitating a humanitarian crisis,” Tibaijuka said in her report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Annan called the report “profoundly distressing”, saying the evictions had done “a catastrophic injustice to as many as 700,000 of Zimbabwe’s poorest citizens, through indiscriminate actions, carried out with disquieting indifference to human…

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