UN Envoy evaluating Muramabtsvina damage in Bulawayo

By Violet Gonda

6 December 2005

The UN under-secretary general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Jan Egeland was in Bulawayo assessing the plight of victims of the clean up exercise, Operation Murambatsvina, on Tuesday. Egeland had met with Mugabe first before leaving for Bulawayo on the second leg of his mission. He held talks with church and civic leaders and met with more victims of the clean-up exercise that left more than 700 000 people homeless in Zimbabwe.

The media was barred from the meeting with civic and church groups. This did not go down well with some people resulting in a suspected agent of the state allegedly manhandling a UN employee in charge of security. Our contact in Bulawayo Mkhokheli Dhliwayo said the suspected security agent was heard speaking on the phone, complaining that “something sinister was going on in the closed door meeting. That Pius Ncube was addressing the envoy, telling lies like he always does.”

Dhliwayo said it later turned out that the archbishop was not at the meeting.

Meanwhile the envoy later expressed shock when he spoke with journalists saying there is a crisis in Zimbabwe from what he has seen so far.

The Humanitarian Affairs envoy has since Monday been touring areas that the government destroyed last May under the controversial clean-up campaign, Operation Murambatsvina.

This is the second mission by a senior UN official since Robert Mugabe embarked on the illegal evictions. In July, UN special representative Anna Tibaijuka issued a report describing the campaign as a "disastrous venture" that was carried out in an "indiscriminate and unjustified manner".