Posted on 06/23/2005 7:13:47 PM PDT by blam
Children die beneath Mugabe's bulldozers
By Alistair Leithead in Harare
(Filed: 24/06/2005)
A piece of red plastic tape flutters from a post outside the remains of Lavender Nyika's home in Tafara - a place outside Harare which means "we are happy".
But there is little happiness here. The tape is a traditional sign representing a loss in the family, and while hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have lost their homes, few have lost a daughter.
Lavender Nyika's daughter Charmaine was crushed to death
Charmaine was two years old and inside the family home when the police came with their bulldozers and levelled the house.
All that is left is the foundations, a pile of rubble and a small dirt grave with a wooden cross and a girl's name scrawled on the back of a piece of scrap metal.
"The police came. They had been sent to destroy the house," said Herbert Nyika, Charmaine's father. "They knocked down the building, the walls; they smashed everything. This was when our child was trapped inside. She died there." Her mother, Lavender, said: "I blame the government because it is they who instructed the police to do what they did. It is terrible. I have lost my daughter in such a strange way."
She added: "Of course they have managed to clean up the city but at the same time they have brought suffering to the people - property destruction, homelessness and now the death of a child."
The family is poor and their home was a small building in the back garden of a bigger house.
The Zimbabwean government has spent the past few years targeting white farmers, those with land and wealth; now it seems to be picking on the poor.
The Zimbabwean press yesterday admitted that two toddlers had died in the demolition drive - Charmaine, two, who died two weeks ago, and Terence Munyaka, 18 months, who died on Sunday from head injuries. As outrage rose around the world, the Zimbabwean police called on its officers to exercise more care. In London Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said on behalf of the G8 countries: "We call on the government of Zimbabwe to abide by the rule of law and respect human rights."
Every day in Harare, in Bulawayo, in the towns and cities of Zimbabwe, police in riot gear are systematically moving from suburb to suburb forcing people from their homes. Bulldozers with their buckets raised are silhouetted on the skyline.
The scale of the clearance is so great there is too much work for the police to do - they are now forcing the people to destroy their own homes, or charging them a fee for demolition. On the roads are wheelbarrows piled high, trucks overloaded with cupboards, beds, mattresses - thousands and thousands of people making their way somewhere, but there is nowhere to go. Many are living in the open - their furniture arranged around them as if the walls were still there.
In Bulawayo, under the cover of darkness, a group of people huddled around a fire, a large pot of maize meal bubbling away on a wood stove. "They came to my home and they burned it down," one man said as he took his turn stirring the pot.
"They say they have a strategy, they say they are clearing up the towns," he says, confused as to why his home was destroyed, but too scared to speak against the government.
Old women, sick men and young mothers drag their mattresses inside the church hall, their few blankets all there is to keep away the bitterly cold African winter air.
The churches are full, their lavatories are overflowing, the people have nowhere else to go and so the government has created a solution. Well over 2,000 people have been moved to Caledonia Farm, a resettlement camp outside Harare, with no clean water, sanitation or access to food.
The entrance was blocked by police. Intelligence agents mingled among the poor and the homeless. We crept in through the bush to catch a glimpse of the camp, knowing to be caught would mean a two-year prison sentence.
Again people had arranged their furniture around them, huddled together under plastic sheets and blankets. A desperate mass of humanity forced from their homes by the government.
Some say the reason is political retribution, to punish the urban electorate for voting for the opposition.
Others say it will scatter the angry and dispossessed before the seeds of revolution can be sown; and others look even further ahead. They believe that forcing the people to rural poverty will make them dependent on the state for food and blankets and buy political patronage.
Either way hundreds of thousands of people are homeless, cold, destitute and desperate.
What a wonderful sentiment :-)
It's ok to kill people, as long as they are the same race as you.
He should have gotten the Pinochet treatment in Rome. But I guess that's saved for real criminals, like Rummy, or whoever Amnesty International has in their sights.
And I'm sure AI has issued a report on Zim, but interesting that it hasn't made the front pages, is it not?
I just bypassed cspan and guess who was on with Rumsfeld? Robert Byrd. CLICK! LOL I don't get why Rummy is considered such a criminal but I don't get much of the liberal mindset on anything.
Are they still hanging at Club Gitmo?
That is PRESIDENT BUSH to you. You expect him to do what YOU think he should do, yet you do not show enough respect to wipe his shoes. If you listen to any news at all, the talk is that our Military is stretched too thin as it is and we are not meeting recruitment goals.
In case you have not noticed the US, UK and Australia are a little tied up at the moment. There are thousands, if not millions, that want to kill us. Why are you not screaming for France, Germany or Russia to get off their arses and do something for a change, besides criticize the US?
Since you brought up the UN, let's discuss those worthless basturds. Why not lobby them to do something, anything aside from raping and pillaging the very masses they are being HIGHLY PAID to care for? Start screaming for Amnasty International, or haven't they returned from their vacation at Club Gitmo.
We have a few problems of our own right here in the good old USA. Very soon you will be seeing the same type photos being taken of a town being bulldozed, but it won't be by Mugabe. It will be in CONNECTICUT. So you see PRESIDENT Bush has a full plate!
Now that is out of the way - I'm terribly sorry for what is happening there. My heart breaks for these people. I wish there was something more we could do right now. Every time the US steps in the masses scream Hubris!!
There are many other countries, as you stated, it is time for them to step up to the plate and start doing something to help those in the world that can not help themselves. We may be the greatest country, but we are not the only country. We are doing the best we can for millions around the world.
Well thanks to the USSC nothing like this can happen here.......
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I was wondering when someone would make that connection. I thought the same thing....
Okay. I'm standing up now. Now what do I do besides recognize that Zim has crumbled because of one man and his philosophy and the Zimbaweans' not "solving" their problem sooner?
The solution is the arm the good guys, IMO, not send money or food to Mugabe and his thugs to "distribute"....
I was thinking the same thing.
They are hearding the folks together and then they will become prisoners and slaves (or will be killed), but as someone said in an earlier post, its OK since Mugabe is not white.
Saddam didn't abide by his post-war resolutions, and he had to be held accountable; he kept shooting at our planes; it looked like he was back to creating and stockpiling WMD; he was supporting terrorists; he was harboring terrorists; there's a lot of oil in Iraq and our country runs on the stuff....
The situation in Zimbabwe is entirely different.
BTW, was your question serious, or merely rhetorical?
No it was serious. I forgot Rwanda too and Vietnam but the question was meant to be thought provoking. I'm not saying Iraq is wrong either. Nevermind though. I wish I never brought it up in the first place. Have a nice day.
Basically this is subtle genocide.
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