A smuggled video of hundreds of thousands of poor Zimbabweans on the move after the government tore down their homes as part of an urban renewal project underlined a call from human rights groups for the campaign to stop.
The Zimbabwean government, meanwhile, pledged to build new houses for those it has made homeless.
At a series of news conferences in Africa and at the United Nations on Thursday, more than 200 international human rights and civic groups said the campaign known as Operation Murambatsvina, was ”a grave violation of international human rights law and a disturbing affront to human dignity”.
The groups, including London-based Amnesty International and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, released footage showing bewildered families sleeping in the open in the winter cold after police torched and bulldozed their township homes. Street markets were also targeted and the stalls were left in smouldering ruins.
Police prevent journalists from filming the demolition campaign, so the footage was collected clandestinely by the church-based Solidarity Peace Trust.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s political opposition, which has its base among the urban poor, says the month-long campaign is meant to punish its supporters for voting against the ruling party in recent parliamentary elections.
Mugabe has described the operation as an urban renewal campaign. After a seven-hour meeting of the government’s highest policy-making body on Thursday, the government’s spokesperson Ephraim Masawi was quoted on state radio as saying military personnel will lead national and provincial reconstruction committees being formed immediately.
Answering questions on Wednesday during a stormy parliamentary session, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa conceded harm had been done to legitimate housing by what he called a ”clean up” meant to flush out black marketeers and criminals. The government blames them for runaway inflation of 144% and shortages of most staples.
”We are aware that there is damage, people are homeless and so forth,” the minister said.
”But government has put into place the necessary logistics to address those immediate concerns such as health.”
Since police launched the blitz in Harare on May 19, it has been extended throughout the country, causing sporadic rioting as impoverished residents tried to resist the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.
International rights groups said at least 300 000 people have lost their homes. The United Nations puts the figure as high as 1,5-million, though Zimbabwe police only acknowledge about 120 000.
More than 46 000 people have also been arrested, fined or had their goods confiscated, police acknowledged in the state-run Herald newspaper.
Pius Ncube, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, has been a sharp critic of the evictions, and was shown on the human rights groups’ video saying he was so angered by the campaign he was ”ready to stand before a gun and be shot”.
At Hatcliffe Extension, a Harare township, residents told human rights groups that they were being forced from homes given to them by the government itself ahead of elections in 2000 and 2002.
Those who did not leave on their own said in the video that they were driven in trucks to a patch of wilderness on the outskirts of the capital, where they were shown surrounded by their paltry possessions.
”We were dumped here by people with whips,” said one young man, whose name was not released for fear of retribution. ”We don’t know what went wrong. We were given these stands by the government.”
When lawyers tried to get an injunction to block the Hatcliffe evictions, a high court ruled they were justified because residents had made improvements to their properties without prior government approval, Arnold Tsunga of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said at a news conference in Johannesburg.
The rights groups urged the African Union, which is meeting in Libya next month, and the United Nations to act against Zimbabwe — but did not specify how.
They also demanded that Zimbabwe compensate those displaced and allow access to them by humanitarian workers, who they say are currently being blocked from providing relief.
Earlier on Thursday, President Robert Mugabe said his government supported the shack demolitions. He said the shacks had served as ”notorious criminal hideouts and havens for black-market activities”.
He was speaking at a graduation ceremony for more than 300 new police recruits in the capital, Harare.
State radio, though, said on Wednesday some of those displaced had been moved to a farm 30km east of Harare. The broadcast said charities were working with the government to turn the site ”into a healthy comfortable destination”.
”Some families have already been resettled after vetting,” said Inspector Eunice Marange, the police officer in charge of what the state radio said was a ”transit camp” at Caledonia.
”The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare has since moved in to vaccinate children and provide other services, while accommodation, water and food have also been made available,” Marange told the radio.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says ”vetting” means proving loyalty to Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, with suspected opposition supporters being forced into the countryside for ”re-education,” under a policy similar to that of the former Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. – Sapa-AP, DPA