Zim blitz: Lawsuits lined up
2005-06-24 08:33
Harare - Zimbabwean lawyers have lined up a series of lawsuits against a government clean-up campaign involving the flattening of illegal shacks and buildings which has left hundreds of thousands homeless and claimed the lives of two children, an official said on Thursday.
"We have drafted a number of court applications against the still continuing violations and abuses," said Rangu Nyamurundira from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) groups on Thursday.
"But we are having problems getting people who will represent the affected people as the applicants. Most of the people fear they will be victimised if they take the government to court."
For more than a month, bands of armed police have used excavators, bulldozers and sledgehammers to demolish and at times torch backyard shacks and shop stalls across Zimbabwe.
President Mugabe has said the campaign, codenamed Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out filth), is aimed at bettering the lot of the common man, improving infrastructure in cities and fighting crime in urban areas.
The exercise, which comes in winter and against the backdrop of crippling food and fuel shortages and spiraling unemployment and triple-digit inflation, has left between 200 000 and 1.5 million people homeless according to the United Nations (UN) and the opposition respectively.
Legality of campaign contested
The state-run Herald daily on Thursday reported two toddlers had been crushed to death while their homes were being flattened.
ZLHR wants to challenge the legality of the government drive and the detention of displaced people in camps until they are relocated in rural areas, saying it amounts to abduction and illegal detention.
"We will launch pre-emptive action to prevent affected people currently being held in holding camps from being moved to unknown destinations by the police," Nyamurundira said.
"We are also preparing a constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court against the overall operations and their impact on the constitutional and other human rights of the affected people."
Amnesty International and more than 200 non-governmental organisations from 23 African nations joined forces on Thursday to call upon the UN and the African Union to pressure Mugabe to halt the demolitions.
- AFP