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.
Just when you think "it's as bad as it can get", it will become worse. Malice and idiocy by themselves do not know any limits, and could only occasionally limit one another.
That chip on your shoulder looks like a brick to me.
Overstatement except to be humorous or sarcastic do not help your argument. In fact, they tend to discredit it.
I guess that means you agree.
LOL. . .and except when something 'good' needs to be accomplished; otherwise they are right on it. . .and in it. . .
You assume incorrectly in post 24.
It appears to me, that Japan, China and Taiwan are not excluded. It is not just "whitey"
I take a great deal of pride in wearing my "Selous Scouts - Rhodesia" t-shirt.
I'll grant you Japan. But China is going to put pressure on Zimbabwe to reform?
Thats a good one.
The UN is a glorified debating society funded by the wealthier nations to give the smaller nations a body where they can "feel" important.
What could be wrong in this country. Once the colonialist were gone, it was suppose to be heaven on earth.
The international community, including the Carter Administration in the US, went through hoops to help install the government that resulted in Mugabe taking charge. He was the toast of the west in the late 1970s and early 80s. I think the "international community" would rather see every last Zimbabwean starve to death than have to backtrack on Mugabe.
Yep. Makes it hard for me to give a damn about their problems. They ain't the "white man's burden" anymore. They are free to revert to their own natural order, under the benign leadership of their revolutionary heroes.
And they have in Zimbabwe.
It makes it even harder for me. I remember the tremendous international pressure on the Ian Smith regime. This was in the sixties. Rhodesia it was then.
My own native country England to the fore. I believe South Africa and Israel alone dared to differ. The fools in England, all lily white of course. The demonstrations etc. The shouts of "one man, one vote". A great idea, one cannot refute that. Of course, Mugabe does not play by the rules.
I suppose those fools live in their safe houses and neat suburbs. The Zimbabwe whites not so lucky. They(former demonstrators) are able, as Orwell so aptly put it in another context, able to put a clothes pin on their noses, to keep out their own stink.
---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.---
If they will not defend their homes, if they will not fight, what is anyone to do for them?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.