Here's an email I've received from Zimbabwe:
It is mid-winter in Zimbabwe where the government is currently destroying tens of thousands of occupied homes, shacks, kiosks or whatever, and as a result is also destroying the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people, rendering homeless hundreds of thousands more, and making even more poverty-stricken over a million already poor black people. Most of the 'illegal businesses' (so-called by the government in order to justify their destruction) have been in operation for seven years or longer with business licences issued by municipalities. Many of the homes and shacks are occupied by people rendered homeless and jobless during the past five years after being forced off 'white' farms by the Zimbabwe government's illegal invaders.And how much deeper the descent of Zimbabwe? Stygius links to a Famine Early Warning Systems report on the country (scroll down), according to which...
I understand that these gross human rights violations are in breach of the UN's own human rights laws which require UN signatories such as Zimbabwe to provide alternative accommodation before destroying homes.I have not heard a single African government condemning this behaviour nor have I heard of a single demonstration or a single word in condemnation by the human rights activists. This entire unsavoury business raises certain questions:
1. Has anyone made the connection between this behaviour and Zimbabwe's seat on the UN Commission for Human Rights? How can Zimbabwe retain its position there?2. If the UN is not prepared to expel (or at least suspend) states that commit violations of its principles, how can anyone continue to take it seriously?
3. Surely African leaders must speak out. Doesn't their silence imply assent?
The majority of farming households will harvest nothing and are already dependent on the market for all their food requirements at a time when own crop production would normally be their dominant source of food.Mugabe, who not long ago was boasting that food stocks were sufficient, has now agreed to limited UN aid. However...
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As a result of the production failure this year, the bulk of Zimbabwe's 1.8 million MT maize consumption requirement will have to be imported. While some of this food can be safely distributed through the normal marketing mechanism, much of it will need to be distributed through timely food aid programs because of critical household cash income deficits...
The restricted scope of the UN aid will leave the Mugabe government in charge of providing food to the general population.Meanwhile:The Harare government has been accused of withholding food from areas that voted for the opposition in the March 31 elections.
Zimbabwe's police [have] warned... they would stop protests over their urban clean-up campaign, which has seen illegal houses and shops demolished around the country making an estimated 200,000 people homeless.Clean-up campaign.