Mr. Stanley Wong, Chair
s-wong-1@northwestern.edu


On May 19th 2005, the Government of Zimbabwe began a large-scale operation called Operation Murambatsvina to clean up its cities by cracking down on illegal trading and illegal housing. The government termed its actions as a massive urban renewal campaign aimed at reducing the chaos and congestion of urban areas and as a way to effectively counter an illicit black market and crime in its cities. Under the full support of President Robert Mugagbe, the Zimbabwean police and army forcibly evicted according to UN estimates, at least 300,000 persons from their homes and destroyed the livelihoods of approximately 700,000 people, affecting an estimated 2.4 million lives, without compensation or provisions for subsistence.

Detractors have said that the actions of the government may be politically motivated. The allegations of human rights abuses prompted the United Nations to send Anna Tibaijuka, the Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme, to Zimbabwe on a factfinding mission. Her report, which was made public on July 21st, 2005, stated that the operation violated international law and created a humanitarian crisis. The government of Zimbabwe responded in August 2005 with a highly critical 45 page response to the UN report, which defended its actions as justified for the public interest and in compliance with national law.

On December 5th, 2005, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights passed a resolution that condemned the human rights violations committed by Zimbabwe in regard to Operation Murambatsvina and called upon the African Union to renew the mandate of a representative envoy to investigate the status of human rights.

As the situation of the mass evictions continues to be felt in Zimbabwe, the time has now been provided to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to address this issue. Several questions arise when fashioning a response from the international community to the situation in Zimbabwe. What exactly is a nation’s rights of development? At what cost in terms of human suffering does the power of the state have in trumping the needs of some of its constituents for the public good? If Zimbabwe has indeed impinged upon human rights, how would the United Nations censure Zimbabwe? And in case the United Nations does decide to intervene, how would international aid and basic necessities be administered in light of a government that does not recognize any human right abuses being committed within its country?


African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution on the situation of human rights in Zimbabwe
http://www.iss.co.za/af/RegOrg/unity_to_union/pdfs/au/humanrights/zimresdec05.pdf

Google News
http://news.google.com

UN Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe
http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/zimbabwe/zimbabwe_rpt.pdf

ZWNEWS.com
http://www.zwnews.com/index.cfm