Amnesty says Zimbabwe housing policy built on foundation of failures and lies

By Violet Gonda
8 September 2006

Amnesty International released a report and satellite images on Friday that reveals that almost none of the victims of Operation Murambatsvina, the government so-called clean up exercise, have benefited from the programme.

The rights body sent a team to Zimbabwe to investigate the government’s Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle (Better Life) - the regime’s alleged attempt to make right the evictions and demolitions that began last year - to see if any action had been taken by the government to restore the human rights of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Operation Murambatsvina.

One of the researchers Simeon Mawanza said; “Our research has uncovered that the much talked about Operation Garikai is just a public relations exercise which is meant to cover up the human rights violations that took place during Operation Murambatsvina.”

The report, with satellite images, reveals the extent of destruction as opposed to the rebuilding.

Amnesty said; “Contrary to government statements almost none of the victims of Operation Murambatsvina have benefited from the rebuilding, with only some 3,325 houses constructed -- compared to the 92,460 homes destroyed during Operation Murambatsvina -- and construction has ground to a halt in many areas.”

Mawanza also said the Zimbabwe government had created the impression that these houses are for free but; “People are not being offered free houses. The majority of the people cannot pay the amount that the government is requesting because they also lost their livelihood during Operation Murambatsvina.”

Satellite images of just four sites in Chitungwiza, Porta Farm, Hatcliffe and Killarney show more than 5,000 houses destroyed, demonstrating that the government's much publicised rebuilding programme has produced fewer houses nationwide than were destroyed in just a fraction of the country. The report said most of the new homes were still incomplete, without sanitation facilities, doors, windows, floors and roofs.

Furthermore, in most sites visited by Amnesty International researchers, houses and land plots were allocated to people who had not been forcibly evicted during Murambatsvina. This was also confirmed in an earlier report released just over a week ago by the Solidarity Peace Trust – a grouping of church leaders from Southern Africa.

The church leaders revealed in the report that Murambatsvina has left even more people impoverished and that housing allocation has led to one scandal after another. Priority in the allocation of houses should be given to those who were affected by Operation Murambatsvina but most of the houses built under operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle have been “allocated to government officials, children of cabinet ministers, police, army, multiple house-owners and others who were not on any official housing list.”

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Click to see Amnesty Int. Quantifying destruction - satellite images of forced evictions