Zim warns of another slum blitz

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Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government threatened a fresh round of slum clearances, said reports on Tuesday, after new shanty towns sprang up despite a widely condemned 2005 demolition campaign.

The government's 2005 campaign, dubbed "Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order" was sharply criticised by human rights groups and the United Nations, which said more than 700 000 people were left without homes, sources of livelihood or both.

Although the government had come up with a programme to provide shelter for victims of the crackdown, it had failed to meet growing requirements for housing, resulting in the re-emergence of shacks in Harare and other urban centres.

On Tuesday, it was reported that Harare metropolitan province governor David Karimanzira had warned the government could embark on another "clean-up" operation to remove the new shacks.

Deepening economic crisis

He said: "We might go back to Operation Murambatsvina if people continue to squat everywhere.

"We want well-planned settlements and the government is not going to sit and watch while people build shacks everywhere, they will be demolished."

A deepening economic crisis and the collapse of commercial agriculture had seen more Zimbabweans flocking to cities in search of work opportunities, but limited housing and strained municipal services there had failed to cope with the influx.

While the government defended the last slum clearance drive, saying it was meant to root out crime and stamp out rampant black market activities, the UN branded it a "disastrous exercise... carried out in an unjust manner, with indifference to human suffering".

Zimbabwe was in the grip of its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, blamed by many on Mugabe's policies.

Inflation was above 1 200%, unemployment had risen above 80% while fuel, food and foreign currency were in short supply.

- Reuters