I am primarily going to discuss the massive homeless problem Mugabe has created almost overnight through his "Operation drive out the trash," a brutal eviction campaign that began seven months ago. I spent hours yesterday walking among some of the seven hundred thousand destitute and homeless people who are living under makeshift plastic sheeting or in the open after being evicted from shantytowns across Zimbabwe.
"South Africa sent a delegation here to look at our housing program" Robert Mugabe tells how South Africa learns to "drive out the trash" - See Delft
The evictions were not only particularly brutal and chaotic in the way they spread throughout the country, but profoundly political, turning out many who did not support the government party and leaving urban areas to regime supporters who would like cleaner and leaner cities and less competition for jobs. Those evicted were not only among the poorest and most vulnerable in the country, many were sick with AIDS or tuberculosis
I saw and spoke to dozens of families who had lost everything when their tiny "illegal" brick houses were bulldozed, or their small vending shacks burned and torn apart by security forces in an operation that began in May...
"We do not feel comfortable with the term 'shelter.' Shelter has connotations of impermanency and we build for permanency." As I seek to return to the need for immediate action he is clearly angered. "Keep your tents, we do not need them. Tents are for Arabs!" Stunned, I ask him to repeat what he said. "We want to give real houses to our people. Tents are for Arabs," he says again. It is a phrase that in its absurdity will reverberate through my office.
"We may have an accommodation problem," Mugabe continues, "but the 700,000 figure is exaggerated. People can be sheltered by their families." He embarks on a semantics lecture, suggesting the term "shelter" sends the wrong meaning: "The word connotes impermanency. We want permanent housing here. In terms of humanitarian needs it is not even as bad here as in South Africa. The South Africans have sent delegations here to learn from our housing programs.
"When I was a boy herding my godfather's cattle and it rained I looked for 'shelter' where I could find it — under a tree or in a nearby hut. That is shelter. You can provide food if you want to and build permanent houses with us, but not provide 'shelter' in the form of tents." ...
Mugabe is particularly angry with the UN because a field visit several months earlier by Anna Tibaijuka, the African head of UN Habitat, our organization for urban issues and housing, had first alerted the world to the full extent of Zimbabwe's housing disaster.
"We have a situation here but even in terms of humanitarian aid our needs are not as bad as South Africa's. South Africa sent a delegation here to look at our housing program," he repeats....
- Jan Egeland
No comments:
Post a Comment