Posted on 06/02/2005 6:05:30 PM PDT by blam
Mugabe's raids leave townships in tatters
By David Blair, Africa Correspondent
(Filed: 03/06/2005)
Desperate people picked through the wreckage of their homes yesterday after Zimbabwe's police raided Harare's townships, destroying "illegal shelters" and leaving 10,000 homeless.
Riot police conducting "Operation Drive Out the Rubbish" were accused of bringing misery to the urban poor, the latest target of President Robert Mugabe's campaign of terror.
Children wait with their belongings after their home was destroyed
In one township Irish missionaries were forced to dismantle a clinic and a creche for children orphaned by the Aids epidemic. Police demolished shacks inhabited by impoverished orphans.
"How can the little ones of this world be brutalised in this way?" asked Sister Patricia Walsh, of the Dominican Order.
"They are poor, they are helpless and they happen to live in the wrong part of town."
The latest operation centred on the shanty town of Hatcliffe Extension in the north of the capital.
The regime says police are enforcing the law by demolishing "illegal", temporary homes of wood, cardboard and twisted metal.
The authorities moved thousands of people to the extension in 1992. They were forbidden to build permanent homes and told their stay would be "temporary", pending the provision of proper housing. However, the regime broke its promise and people built the makeshift shacks that were demolished in an operation launched last week.
Sister Walsh, who has worked in the extension for years, visited the shanty town after the first raid on May 26.
"People were sleeping out in the open, many of them sick, cold and hungry," she said. Police returned on Sunday and Sister Walsh said children were screaming and sick people were in agony.
The nuns had been helping 180 Aids orphans in the extension. They provided food and basic medical care for thousands. On police orders, they pulled down their creche and clinic and removed vital medicine.
Sister Walsh found two orphans, Peter, 10, and John, four. "We had provided them with a wooden hut when their mother was dying and she died in the meantime. These two little people had their little home destroyed.''
Mr Mugabe's latest palace, in the style of a Chinese pagoda, is about a mile from the extension.
The townships overwhelmingly supported the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the election in March. His critics believe that he ordered the demolitions as a reprisal.
Ping.
More winning hearts and minds by Mugabe. He will be in Pol Pot territory before he dies.
He seems to have won over the UN and Kofi......they aren't lifting a finger.
Sending this guy a bomb in an artwork which he will display close to his home before setting it off would be the best thing for the area.
Shades of Nero to clear out the place around his palace seems to fit here...
My operating hypothesis is Mugabe wants to exterminate what he considers to be the "useless eaters" inhabiting his country and once it is throughly depopulated, turn it into a jungle theme park for the European celebrities/intellectuals he wishes to impress.
"Its outcome was deeply embarrassing to Mr Mbeki who has been in Washington for talks with President George W Bush seeking more financial aid to bring "good governance" to Africa and rid the continent of corrupt regimes."
Sorry make that Chinese Celebrities/Intellectuals
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410622/posts
Mugabe is the apotheosis of african nihilism, self-hatred and corruption.
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Mugabe is evil.
And the U.S. is accused of human rights abuses.
The U.N., Kofi and Mugabe are partners in crime.
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