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.
The farmers and their former helpers are all by themselves with the lone 'superpower' in the southern area totally against them (Mr.Mbeki of South Africa). Robert Mugabe does a b very good job of silencing people and crushing rebellion behind the scenes. I wish I could show you the emails I get from friends in Zimbabwe. It's sad.
My friend I think some brave,intrepid souls need to take matters into their own hands. Do you know what I mean? Don't wait for help because IT IS NOT COMING. I wish I could be over there helping in the dirt with the brave men (and women) standing up to this tyrant.
The A-holes couldn't even knock on the door before bulldozing?
Then redeem yourself by admitting it is incredibly stupid to demand that the USA solve the self inflicted problems of Africa.
I never said that the US should solve anyone's problems anywhere so I have nothing to admit.
"What are we doing in Iraq? Or elsewhere in the world for that matter? I want to know where the UN is but if the US is going to stick their nose in Iraq and Bosnia, then why not in Zimbabwe?"
Tour post #23.
It's all Bush's fault, I'll betcha, I'll betcha.
Mugabe doesn't have enough to bribe him with.
I asked a question. If they went to Bosnia and Iraq then why not Zimbabwe too? I never said that the US should go and solve the world's self inflicted problems. I think that some aid should be given to opposition parties but not troops. For asking a question, you call me ignorant then call me stupid.
I can certainly understand the sad/outrageous/frustrating feelings of the 'little people'.
But there comes a time, when the 'little people' band together/stand up/ and FIGHT BACK.
I'm tired of seeing our tax $$$ going to a country, and KNOWING that the only ones who benefit, are the ones who grind their own people down. I'm tired of seeing American $$$ going to fatten and strengthen some butthole, who had a vendetta against white farmers...then when he ran out of whites to persecute, he turned to his OWN to brutalize.
I knew a contractor in Houston who provided a house on his property for his top supervisor. He discovered that his wife was having an affair with the man. When he knew they were in there he drove a bulldozer through the bedroom wall. Luckily they escaped but he was soon looking for a new wife and supervisor. No more free housing though.
I always believed that money should be tied to good governance. Mugabe went to the Pope's funeral. He should have been turned away. Jack Straw shook hands with him. Why? I don't think troops are necessary but some severe sanctions would be great as in no more money for his mansion and palace fund. Leave christian missionaries alone, that's so King Leopold-ish what he's doing to them.
But hey, they have "black majority rule," that magical phrase we heard day in, day out back in the 1970s.
Isn't that what really matters?
Chalk up another one for liberalism.
The liberals want it under their terms no matter what. Look at how much they lauded Justice Thurgood Marshall but trashed and nearly destroyed Justice Thomas. I'm coming to think it's a global liberal conspiracy really.
BTTT
What's Kofi's going rate at the moment?
I'll have to take up this discussion with ya tomorrow.(if you don't mind)
It's LATE here and 4:00 am comes TOO early!
I'll keep you and yours in prayer as I lay my head down to sleep tonight.
Blessings to you.
No way. Corrie got what she deserved. These kids were trapped inside.
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