Zimbabwe eviction drive seen worsening AIDS crisis
|
|
Zimbabwe’s urban evictions violated the rights of hundreds of thousands of people and disrupted AIDS treatment across the country, threatening a new stage in the epidemic, a rights group said on Sunday.
Human Rights Watch called on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to investigate the campaign and accused President Robert Mugabe’s government of blocking U.N. efforts to help victims.
“Massive human rights violations have taken place as a result of the mass evictions and demolitions,” Human Rights Watch Africa researcher Tiseke Kasambala said in a new report on the eviction drive.
“The individuals responsible for planning and executing (the campaign) must be immediately brought to justice.”
Zimbabwe launched the evictions in May, using police and bulldozers to demolish shops and residences in urban shantytowns in a blitz that the United Nations estimated cost at least 700,000 people their homes, jobs or both.
Government officials said the operation was aimed at cracking down on black market activity in poor townships, but critics said it was a political campaign against the largely urban supporters of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party.
The United Nations, which sent a special envoy to investigate the campaign, issued a sharply critical report in July calling the demolitions both disastrous and unjustified.
Human Rights Watch said the demolitions displaced hundreds of thousands of men, women and children - many of whom it said remain homeless.
It also said the crackdown had exacerbated looming food shortages in Zimbabwe by making it more difficult for humanitarian agencies to identify and assist those in need.
HOBBLING AIDS FIGHT
The rights watchdog said the evictions had also hobbled efforts to fight Zimbabwe’s HIV/AIDS crisis, disrupting home-based care and treatment programmes in a country where more than one-fourth of the adult population is infected with HIV, one of the highest rates in the world.
“The disruption of treatment programmes is likely to lead to resistance to HIV/AIDS drugs and an increase in opportunistic infections,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
Mugabe’s government has dismissed criticism of its eviction campaign, dubbed “Operation Restore Order”, saying it was necessary to clean up Zimbabwe’s cities and flush out crime and illegal trading in foreign currency and other commodities.
The government has also launched a housing project it says will see home seekers across the country assisted with constructing basic structures, which they can improve on later.
Human Rights Watch slammed Mugabe’s government for blocking the launch of a U.N. “flash appeal” for some $30 million to help those displaced by the evictions, saying Harare’s intransigence was further victimising the most vulnerable including children, widows and people living with HIV/AIDS.
“Zimbabwe is already in a profound political and economic rights crisis - created by a government with a well-known record of abusing its own citizens,” Human Rights Watch said.
“This latest human rights catastrophe can only push the country closer to total devastation.”
Print Version
Tell-a-Friend comments powered by Disqus
