Posted on 06/01/2006 5:00:39 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
LIVING conditions have worsened in Zimbabwe, where most of the 700,000 people who lost homes or businesses in mass evictions last year were still struggling to find shelter, a United Nations housing expert said today.
Miloon Kothari, the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, said most of those displaced by President Robert Mugabe's May 2005 eviction campaign remained homeless, in resettlement camps or were living without food, safe water or sanitation.
"It is as bad as it can get," Mr Kothari said.
He took aim at the international community for what he called a "shocking" lack of pressure on Zimbabwe.
"The political leaders continue to be silent. They are saying there is quiet diplomacy, but you can't have quiet diplomacy for a year with no results," he said.
"The international community seems to have forgotten the people of Zimbabwe," he told reporters at UN headquarters in Geneva.
The Mugabe government used police and bulldozers to demolish street stalls and residences in urban shantytowns in its "Operation Restore Order" eviction campaign.
While authorities said it was aimed at cracking down on black market activity, critics decried the evictions as part of a political swipe against the largely urban supporters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party.
Mr Kothari said some people evicted last year had returned to the site of their previous homes, making them vulnerable to a new round-up by the government.
"We have information that another round of evictions is imminent," he said.
Mr Kothari said he was "extremely concerned" the government had not heeded calls from the United Nations to halt further demolitions and pay compensation for property that was unlawfully destroyed.
He said Zimbabwe's extensive human suffering, combined with difficult economic conditions including the world's highest inflation rates, had compounded the country's problems.
Nothing.
They'll be sending people to molest the underage girls.
Read 'its whities fault.' Of course.
Where is Jesse Jackson and the black panthers in ending this violence?
There are reports that farms are being razed for growing things besides maize
Shirley you jest?
It could be worse. It could be France.
Didn’t the UN just ‘save’ the Sudan from themselves recently? The only country that is sending troops that I know of is China around 400 and china makes no stink about wanting that country for a base of operation.
Don't spend twenty years holding a failing dictatorship up as a paragon of human rights and native African achievements and then expect political correctness-infested Western nations to turn on a dime and start criticizing it. Too many of today's Western governments are filled with liberal characters to whom Robert Mugabe is as sacrosanct as Nelson Mandela - and to whom the mere mention of the word "Rhodesia" damns one as the vilest of racists.
Mugabe has got a free pass until he murders a million blacks. Maybe even beyond that.
Absolutely nothing. Zimbabwe is a black government that wrested their power by eliminating whites at any cost.
"Ethnic Cleansing", at its purest.
The U.N. sees no problem here. No sir.
They'll get around to it, sometime, after they condemn Israel for the 1000th time for those inconvenient checkpoints.
The UN is too busy babysitting the Palestinians for another 60 years.
If their hope is with the UN, they will die.
Apparently the U.N. has now gone bipolar. THEY are the international community. Except... of course... when something needs to be accomplished, then they're not the international community. Maybe they could go to some sort of colored flag system, so we could determine whether it's an 'international community' day or not.
"They'll be sending people to molest the underage girls."
All too true. But, let's not forget that lots of UN 'personnel' like little boys, too. And don't forget that upon hearing about the possibility of UNPersons in the country, sheep and goats were afraid, very afraid.
This type of comment generally means that things are about to get much, much worse.
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