UN to probe Zimbabwe's evictions of squatter towns

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is sending a special envoy to Zimbabwe to investigate a government crackdown on squatter settlements that aid workers say has left 200,000 people homeless.

President Robert Mugabe's government says the clean-up campaign, dubbed "Operation Restore Order," is meant to get rid of structures that have sprouted around urban centres in the last few years and are seen as a haven for illegal traders in foreign currency and scarce food items.

But critics say the exercise, which has hit thousands of unregistered traders, has merely piled pressure on Zimbabweans faced with unemployment of over 70 per cent and chronic shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli described the crackdown as a "tragedy, crime, horror that the government of Zimbabwe is perpetrating on its people."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Mugabe had agreed that Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, executive director of the Nairobi-based UN-Habitat, would visit Zimbabwe as soon as possible "to study the scope of the recent eviction of illegal dwellers, informal traders and squatters, and the humanitarian impact it has had on the affected population."

Thousands have seen their business premises flattened and their goods confiscated in the cleanup campaign, which has also left an estimated 200,000 homeless after their shacks were demolished over the last two weeks.

"Mrs Tibaijuka will visit Zimbabwe shortly, and will prepare a thorough report on the situation," Dujarric said.

Earlier this month Mugabe defended the crackdown as part of a government push to curb corruption and raise the black majority's stake in the economy.

Former colonial ruler Britain and the United States, which have slapped sanctions on Zimbabwe's ruling elite over electoral fraud and other human rights issues, have joined in a chorus of local and international criticism.

In Washington, Ereli said, "It really is obscene what's going on there -- where the government destroys homes and businesses of Zimbabwe's poor in some perverse, misguided move to respond to political opposition or to respond to economic factors."

"It defies explanation," he added.

"But it's clear that it's wrong and that it's objectionable and that it's condemnable ... And that's why we call on the government of Zimbabwe to stop it and to act in a responsible way to meet the needs of its citizens, economically, politically and socially," Ereli said.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says the crackdown is directed against its mostly urban support base, a charge Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party denies.

- REUTERS