A United Nations envoy has extended her investigation of a so-called urban renewal drive that has destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to a second week, state radio reported on Monday.
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo was quoted as saying envoy Anna Tibaijuka will now leave Zimbabwe on Friday.
Tibaijuka, who was sent by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to investigate the humanitarian impact of the government’s Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, was initially expected to complete her visit on Sunday.
Tibaijuka was in meetings on Monday, UN officials said without elaborating.
On Tuesday, she planned to visit Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo, scene of sporadic violence during the evictions. Police used tear gas and batons to prevent protests when they moved last month into Makokoba, the country’s oldest black township outside Bulawayo, about 500km south-west of the capital, Harare.
Humanitarian workers estimate as many as 1,5-million people have been left homeless since police began torching and bulldozing shantytowns, markets and other structures they deem illegal on May 19.
The blitz comes at the height of the Southern African winter and has drawn international condemnation. Zimbabwean human rights groups, doctors and clerics have called it a cruel attack on the poor.
A number of people — including the sick, the elderly and children — have died of disease and exposure. Others have been reported killed by falling rubble, or in accidents involving vehicles used in the forced removals. The total casualty count remains unclear.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change argues the demolitions and evictions are a crackdown on its support base among the urban poor.
President Robert Mugabe’s government insists there is no political motive and says the operation has already helped reduce crime and restore order in city slums.
The government has pledged Z$3-trillion (R2,2-billion) to provide 1,2-million houses or building plots by 2008.
Economists have voiced doubts that the government has the funds for the massive reconstruction project at a time when inflation has soared to more than 144% and an estimated four million people are in urgent need of food relief.
Minister defends demolitions
Meanwhile, reports Wendell Roelf, delegates at an international housing seminar in Cape Town heard on Monday that Zimbabwe’s demolition of urban slums is part of the country’s national housing plan.
”It is planned. We have never done anything unplanned in Zimbabwe,” said Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Housing and Public Works, Morris Sakabuya.
”The programme has so far allocated 200 000 stands for housing development and acquired 33 000 hectares of peri-urban land to meet this noble objective.”
Sakabuya told delegates that when Zimbabwe embarked on its land-reform programme, people were saying it was a ”political gimmick”.
”We know where are coming from. We know where we are going,” he said.
Rural-urban migration had reached alarming levels, where the water restriction systems in urban areas could no longer afford the migration.
”In fact, that is why we undertook the resettlement programme. We were trying to decongest urban areas and tribal-trust rural areas.”
Sakabuya said Zimbabwe’s economy is agriculture-based and unemployed people who are given land should develop that land instead of trekking to the cities and staying in a shack.
People recently removed from Harare were those engaged in illegal activities, illegal vending, smuggling and ”all sorts of decadences”, he said.
Those with homes in rural areas and land in the resettlement programmes are to return there, and those who have nowhere to go are being put in holding camps and are allocated stands in the peri-urban farms.
”The issue here, ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to Zimbabwe, is our problem with Britain. Anything that Zimbabwe does is blown out of proportion,” Sakabuya said.
His government is committed to provide ”decent and affordable” housing to all its citizens, which has been done since 1980.
Meanwhile, Eduardo Lopez-Moreno of the UN Human Settlements Programme said governments need to offer solutions first before demolishing settlements.
”Any action, such as in Zimbabwe, means that in 10 to 15 years we would find ourselves again in a similar position. There are no other alternatives offered first,” he said.
He said slums and informal settlements in developing countries are more a solution than a problem, because they provide between 70% and 80% of new jobs and houses.
Lopez-Moreno was one of hundreds of delegates attending the two-day seminar, entitled Building an International Body of Knowledge on Housing and Urban Development: Towards Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. — Sapa, Sapa-AP