Zimbabweans to demonstrate at UN offices in Pretoria

By Lance Guma

2 August 2006

Zimbabweans, under the auspices of Crisis in Zimbabwe-SA Chapter and several civic society groups in South Africa, are set to converge on the offices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Pretoria. The march has been organised to hand over a petition to the UN offices and highlight the humanitarian crisis caused by last years Operation Murambatsvina. One of the co-ordinators, Nixon ‘Mao’ Nyikadzino, says the UNDP offices house several other UN departments and this was why they were targeting it. The petition is addressed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

‘The protestors are going to mount a stand close to the offices and videos of Operation Murambatsvina will be screened as a testimony of the ruthless and callous state actions on more 700 000 people whose main sources of livelihoods and shelter were destroyed without warning or a justifiable reason,’ read a statement from Crisis in Zimbabwe. A rally has been organised on the same day and victims of the operation will narrate their ordeal at the hands of Zimbabwe’s police. Nyikadzino says they are petitioning Annan to enforce the recommendations of the report by Special Envoy Ms. Anna Tibaijuka in 2005.

In May last year, Robert Mugabe’s regime instructed the police to demolish so-called ‘illegal structures’ and in the process made over  700 000 people homeless. The justification by government was that they were cleaning up informal settlements harbouring criminals yet it was clear to many they were targeting opposition strongholds.