Mugabe's Glee

Zimbabwe's dictator Mugabe couldn't be happier that he destroyed the shanty-homes of his oppressed, impoverished country's most poor:

The Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, today congratulated police on their role in a campaign against slum-dwellers that has left 1.5 million people homeless. The campaign has triggered a wave of international condemnation and seen thousands of homes bulldozed and torched over the past month.

Although it has targeted opponents of Mr Mugabe's regime, it is officially described as an urban renewal campaign. Operation Murambatsvina - a word meaning 'drive out trash' - has resulted in the destruction of shantytowns, street markets and even vegetable gardens set up by many city dwellers facing acute food shortages.

Addressing a police graduation ceremony on Thursday, Mr Mugabe said the campaign was wiping out havens for criminals and black market profiteers.
Last week, state radio quoted him as saying he was "happy that a new breed of organised entrepreneurs will emerge".

"The government is fully behind the clean up and applauded the police for ensuring the success of the operation," he said. Zimbabwe's opposition, much of whose support is among the urban poor, says the campaign is aimed at punishing people for voting against the ruling Zanu-PF party in the country's recent elections.

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"If the reports are simply half true - and we believe them to be much more than half true - this is a situation of serious international concern."

The Conservative foreign affairs spokeswoman, Anne McIntosh, said the government should appeal to the UN to take international action on the issue. "These crimes against humanity cannot be allowed to continue," she said.

More than 200 international human rights and civic groups demanded today that Zimbabwe stop the campaign, releasing smuggled videos of families forced to sleep in the open in the winter cold. Police prevented journalists from filming the demolition campaign, and footage was secretly collected by the church-based Solidarity Peace Trust.

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"We were dumped here by people with whips," one young man - whose name was not released for fear of retribution - said. "We don't know what went wrong. We were given these stands by the government."

For everything that we have to combat at home, somewhere else it's always worse. We must be able to look to improve the situation everywhere we can...