Zimbabwe July 2005 |
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| Government returns some slum dwellers to former homes, (Sapa-AFP, 2005-07-20):-The Zimbabwean government has started moving some former slum dwellers left homeless by a controversial demolition campaign back to what remains of their destroyed shacks, state television reported Wednesday. "What is happening is that those from Hatcliffe Extension who have ... lease agreements are being asked to return to their old stands," said police inspector Garikai Marange, referring to a once densely populated shantytown. Marange, who is in charge of a transit camp on the outskirts of the capital Harare, added: "About 100 people have left the camp so far. We have between 200 and 300 people and they are very happy to go back to their stands." Human rights lawyers said 2,000 families were thrown out of their makeshift homes in Hatcliffe Extension, a slum 10 kilometres (seven miles) west of Harare when the government launched its controversial clean-up campaign in May. Some of them were moved to the settlement in the early 1990s after they were removed from the streets of Harare in a clean-up campaign on the eve of a visit by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. High Court Judge Tedius Karwi dismissed an application in May by 2,000 families removed from Hatcliffe Extension, who wanted theireviction to be declared illegal. "It's not clear whether they are going to stay or if this is just another political gimmick," Otto Saki of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights told AFP. "The other question is what is the government going to do about shelter and property they destroyed and the families who have moved to their rural homes. Are they going to compensate everyone affected?" Bands of armed police have gone on the rampage in the last two months in major towns across Zimbabwe, demolishing and torching backyard shacks and makeshift shop stalls in a campaign the United Nations says has left 200,000 people homeless. President Robert Mugabe has consistently defended the blitz, saying it was an urban renewal project to rid the country of crime and grime. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |