- Just as Eddie Cross of the MDC predicted a short while
back, Mugabe has wiped out homes, and even bulldozed grocery stores - in
mid-winter. Eddie Cross estimated 2 million Blacks would be homeless. The
UN estimates that this campaign, which has taken only 1 month, has resulted
in 1.5 million Blacks losing their homes.
-
- As unbelievable as this may sound, Mugabe has also banned
people from growing food in their own yards in urban areas to feed their
own families.
-
- So far, the only Government I know of, to say anything
openly about this is the US Government. S.Africa has not said one word.
I have not heard cries of condemnation from anyone else.
-
- Where is the world?
-
- Or, doesn't the world care about anything anymore?
-
- Mugabe has said he will allow someone from the UN to
take a look. But the Useless Nations - as the UN really should be called
- will probably do little if anything.
-
- What is happening is despicable. If only Apartheid had
been 1/100th as evil as Mugabe is... What is happening in Zimbabwe is unprecedented
in Southern African history. And yet, I say to all of you, you have not
seen the worst that Mugabe has to offer. If he is backed into a corner,
this man will not just make millions homeless - he will *KILL* millions.
-
- He already wiped out 20,000-30,000 Matabele people back
in 1985 when he sent in his troops to wipe out entire villages. They were
throwing Black people down wells. An old school chum of mine (see TheBeardedMan
Blog spot), was a Policeman in Zimbabwe and had the opportunity to see
some of the aftermath of Mugabe's mass murder in the early 1980's). Mugabe
is capable of murdering not tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands
- this man is a murderer on the scale of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. If
he is put in a corner he will kill millions.
-
- This is the work of a megalomaniac who is punishing the
populace for voting against him.
-
- I find it incomprehensible that no major country in the
world will sponsor a war against this complete maniac of a man. Not even
Saddam Hussein has done anything close to the evil that this man has got
away with. -- Jan
-
-
-
- Daily Mail & Guardian
6-23-5
-
- (SAPA-AP) -- Zimbabwe police have extended a demolition
campaign targeting the homes and livelihoods of the urban poor to the vegetable
gardens they rely on for food, saying the crops planted on vacant lots
are damaging the environment.
-
- President Robert Mugabe was quoted on Tuesday as saying
concern about the campaign was misplaced and agreeing to allow in a United
Nations observer.
-
- The crackdown on urban farming -- at a time of food shortages
in Zimbabwe -- is the latest escalation in the government's month-long
Operation Murambatsvina (or Drive Out Trash), which has seen police torch
the shacks of poor city dwellers, arrest street vendors and demolish their
kiosks.
-
- Mugabe defends the campaign as a clean-up drive. But
the political opposition, which has its base among the urban poor, says
the campaign is meant to punish its supporters.
-
- The UN estimates the campaign has left at least 1,5-million
people homeless in the winter cold. Police say more than 30 000 have also
been arrested, most of them street vendors the government accuses of sabotaging
the failing economy by selling black market goods.
-
- Senior assistant police commissioner Edmore Veterai said
Zimbabwean authorities were now targeting urban farming, saying the practice
was causing "massive environmental damage," state radio reported
on Tuesday.
-
- The destruction of city plots is a painful reminder of
one of the most hated policies of the white government that ruled before
independence in 1980 -- the random slashing of crops on roadsides and railroad
embankments.
-
- The current crackdown comes when this southern African
country needs to import 1,2-million tonnes of food to avoid famine.
-
- Years of drought, combined with the seizure of thousands
of white-owned farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans, have slashed
agricultural production.
-
- Many poor families depend on their vegetable patches
for food and a tiny income at a time of 144% inflation and 80% unemployment.
-
- Many of the capital's two million residents till any
vacant ground they can find for an annual production of 50 000 tonnes of
corn -- over a fifth of their total food requirements -- according to farming
expert Richard Winkfield.
-
- The Reverend Oskar Wermter, former secretary to the Zimbabwe
Roman Catholic Bishop's conference and a parish priest in one of the poorest
downtown areas, called the crackdown against these plots "insane and
evil."
-
- "They are sleeping in the open air -- tiny children
and people dying of Aids -- and people you thought still had some decency
are defending this crime against humanity," said Wermter. "It
is a watershed, it is the beginning of the end, but the end will be terrible."
-
- Charlie Hewat, executive director of Environment Africa,
said controlled urban agriculture was essential for the poor throughout
the developing world's cities. There were, however, no legal allotments
in Harare.
-
- The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change has
accused the 81-year-old Mugabe of imitating Cambodia's former Pol Pot regime
by driving pro-MDC urban voters back to rural areas for "re-education."
-
- It alleges food access is being used as a weapon of political
reprisal following the March 31 parliamentary elections won by Mugabe's
Zanu-PF.
-
- Mugabe expressed surprise at the "misplaced hue
and cry over Operation Murambatsvina" in a recent telephone conversation
with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, presidential spokesperson George
Charamba told The Herald newspaper.
-
- Mugabe agreed in the phone call to let Anna Tibaijuka,
Tanzanian head of the United Nations Habitat agency, come as Annan's envoy
to asses the impact of "Operation Murambatsvina," Charamba confirmed.
-
- On Sunday, police spokesperson Whisper Bondayi said the
demolition campaign was also being extended to wealthier suburbs. He said
some residents had illegally converted their homes into offices and workshops.
-
- No demolitions have been reported in such neighbourhoods.
Wealthy home owners have recourse to judges and lawyers -- unlike the poor
who rush to salvage what possessions they can before their homes are burned
or bulldozed.
-
- However, police have arrested 335 prostitutes and 161
illegal aliens -- mostly "fugitives from justice in their own countries"
-- in raids on lodges and apartments near downtown Harare, Bondayi told
Tuesday's edition of The Herald.
-
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- http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_
news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=243587
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