A United Nations official said on Monday that Zimbabwe has not halted its demolitions campaign despite assurances from the government last week that the razing of shacks and other unauthorised homes had stopped.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative Agostinho Zacarias said ”we are still getting reports that, for instance, in Chipinge demolitions have continued”.
”We are very concerned with that because it seems to be contradicting the report we got from the minister,” Zacarias told a news conference.
Chipinge, located near the border with Mozambique, about 300km east of the capital, is a remote rural district that has traditionally voted for the opposition, but a ruling Zanu-PF candidate won the seat in the March elections.
Zacarias said farm workers in the area had their houses flattened.
Zimbabwe last week said it had stopped demolitions to give people time to obtain necessary permits for their homes and other buildings.
It also closed down a camp that had become the dumping site for people whose dwellings had been destroyed since May, when the government launched the operation that it said was to rid the country of crime and squalor.
The UN estimates that at least 700 000 people have lost their homes while 2,4-million others have been affected by the campaign.
The UN produced a damning report last week following a fact-finding mission by the director of UN Habitat Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka to the country and called on the government to put an immediate end to the razings.
The report was condemned by Zimbabwe as baised and prejudged, but Zacarias said it ”provides a good basis to engage the government constructively in many areas”.
He dismissed reports in the state-controlled media that former colonial ruler Britain had influenced the report, saying no UN employee is on the payroll of the British government.
”Everything that is written in the report …is what Mrs Tibaijuka believes to be rightly observed on the ground,” he said.
Confirming that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had shown interest in visiting Zimbabwe, Zacarias said there were no conditions surrounding his trip.
Annan said earlier on Monday that he had accepted an invitation from President Robert Mugabe to visit Zimbabwe to discuss Tibaijuka’s report but no date had yet been set.
Commenting on the movement of people from the transit camp outside the capital back to their original places of residence, Zacarias said ”I think there was an admission that it was a mistake to move people from Hatcliffe to Caledonia farm and that is why the government is reversing its decision.”
He said the UN and the government were currently trying to reach an agreement ”to mobilise immediate humanitarian assistance”.
‘Look East’
China is committed to aiding Zimbabwe’s economic growth while staying out of its internal affairs, the government said on Tuesday as the Chinese president prepared to meet with Mugabe.
Mugabe was in Beijing apparently seeking aid and investment for his struggling economy. He blames the crisis on Western sanctions imposed in response to human rights abuses.
He was to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao later on Tuesday.
China’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement, said it ”doesn’t interfere in another country’s internal policies”.
China ”trusts Zimbabwe’s government and people have the ability to deal properly with their own matters,” the statement said.
”Since China and Zimbabwe established diplomatic relations, the Chinese side has consistently provided aid and supported economic and social development as it can,” it added.
The two countries set up relations in 1980.
According to Zimbabwean government figures, China has entered joint ventures and loan agreements with Zimbabwe worth $100-million since 1980 and has assisted in the training of the national army.
Mugabe’s ”Look East” policy seeks aid from China and other Asian countries that are less likely to raise human rights concerns.
China is reported to covet mining rights in Zimbabwe as it trawls the globe for raw materials to feed its economic boom.
The Chinese ministry statement, issued in response to questions, didn’t say what trade or investment deals Beijing was seeking during Mugabe’s visit, which began on Saturday.
New Zealand is calling on Beijing to change the way it gives aid to Zimbabwe to ensure the money gets to those who need it and isn’t funneled to the Mugabe regime.
Zimbabwe has suffered five years of steep economic decline since the government began seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks. Some of the best farms have ended up in the hands of ruling party officials. – Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP