31st July, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

They came in the night. In a series of raids, police dressed in riot gear and carrying batons have moved on churches in the city of Bulawayo and forcibly removed hundreds of people taking shelter on church grounds after earlier having been driven from their homes.

The report, which emerged from the strife-torn African nation of Zimbabwe earlier this month, comes in the wake of a concerted campaign known as “Operation Murambatsvina” (Operation Restore Order) which has resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of people.

For weeks now we’ve been hearing about what’s been happening in Zimbabwe and while there has been spasmodic disapproval from the West, a UN report issued recently appears to finally have pushed the world community - or at least part thereof - to confront the issue.

The report estimates 700,000 people have been left without their homes or livelihoods or both as a result of the clearances while a further 2.4 million people had been affected by the nationwide campaign which began in May.

Written by Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme, the report states the clearances were "carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering".

Since its contents were made public, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan rang Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe, and, according to Annan himself, "stressed the need for action to be taken to help the people affected, to stop the clearances and to ensure that those affected are not only looked after but they are given adequate housing."

"We, the international community, would want to muster the aid necessary to help the people (and) to work with the government in changing the situation," he told journalists this week.

There have been similar calls for change in Zimbabwe from all over the globe - among those who have issued a call for action is the National Council of Churches in Australia which has released a statement expressing their solidarity with churches in Zimbabwe and called on Mr Mugabe to alleviate the suffering of his people.

“(W)e join the mounting global protest condemning these illegal actions by a government against the very people it should be protecting, the weak and vulnerable” said Reverend John Henderson, general secretary of the NCCA.

“We call upon the government of Zimbabwe to heed the call of God, of the people, and of the nations of the world to change its course and ensure future fair and democratic processes.”

The matter has now gained the attention of the UN Security Council but there are already indications that things will not move fast (China and Russia joined three African nations - Algeria, Benin and Tanzania - in unsuccessfully voting against the UN envoy even briefing the council.) Annan, meanwhile, has confirmed that since the release of the report, he has been invited to Zimbabwe but has yet to set a date.

There are increasing signs that the attention of the international community has ever so slowly begun to turn toward the plight of Zimbabwe’s poor - among them a motion passed in New Zealand’s parliament calling on the nation’s cricket team to abandon their tour of the country next month - but there’s so far been of little to comfort for those who have been driven from their homes and worse under Mugabe’s regime.

The world needs to fast-track its response to Zimbabwe and to apply the necessary level of political pressure to ensure Mugabe’s regime take’s its condemnation seriously. After all, for those who have been forced from their homes and livelihoods, the clock is ticking.

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