Zimbabwe remembers and nobody takes any notice

Operation Murambatsvina was launched one year ago in Harare, Zimbabwe as an alleged slum-clearance operation that left hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans homeless. In reality it was a Stalinist movement of population engineered by Mengistu the refugee Ethiopian deposed dictator which affected over 800,000 people. UN special envoy Anna Tibaijuka produced a devastatingly critical report in July 2005 and demanded the government to pay reparations to those who had lost housing and livelihoods and punish those who, "with indifference to human suffering", had carried out the evictions.

Tibaijuka, UN-HABITAT's Executive Director, said the 3 month operation, "breached both national and international human rights law provisions guiding evictions, thereby precipitating a humanitarian crisis".

Not a word has been said by any G8 Leader, EU leader or President Bush and the man in his trousers Tony Blair ... as the country plunges further into chaos.

The BBC remain silent as well.

Arrests at Protest meetings.
Today Police arrested more than 100 members of a civil society organization that staged a commemorative protest in central Harare in defiance of a police ban on commemorations of Operation Murambatsvina.

Some 1,000 members of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) demonstrated in a commorative protest and 103 of them, including 61 women, were arrested, said NCA Chairman Lovemore Madhuku. He charged that the police severely beat many of the arrested demonstrators, whose intention, he said, was to "remind the world of President (Robert) Mugabe's evils."

The Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe and the National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations, or Nango, postponed commemorations until later in the month. Crisis Coalition spokeswoman Elizabeth Marunda said police ordered the groups to put observations off until after a parliamentary by-election in Budiriro on Saturday.Plans are for a protest on May 27th.

Arrests at By Election of MDC officers

Arthur Mutambara , head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) pro-Senate faction, was campaigning in Harare's high-density Budiriro suburb, where this weekend's by-election will be fought. He was detained along with the faction's deputy secretary-general, Priscilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga, at least 50 other members were arrested along with Glen Norah MP Goodwill Chimbaira, Edwin Mushoriwa of Dzivaresekwa and the MDC's candidate in the weekend Budiriro parliamentary by-election, Gabriel Chibva. (see pic)

But the postponement followed a visit by police to the Crisis Coalition's Harare offices Thursday, supposedly to inquire about the organization’s registration status. Coalition advocacy officer Itai Zimunya, questioned by police, said a policeman threatened to make “an example’’ of the organization. The police threatened they would return today meet the group's executives and inspect registration documents.

In Bulawayo, the Christian Alliance of churches assisting Murambatsvina victims was awaiting a High Court decision on an urgent application for the justices to overturn a police revocation of a permit for a prayer meeting and march on Saturday, May 20. A spokesman for the group said it would lead prayers then whatever the decision.

Nongovernmental organizations including the Combined Harare Residents Association and the Crisis Coalition, along with HIV-AIDS activists and Murambatsvina victims, met in a community hall in Harare's Highfield section. They signed a petition asking African countries and the United Nations to declare May 18 International Anti-Eviction Day.

UN Secretary General's visit not certain

Augostino Zacharias a United Nations spokesperson and Zimbabwe country director is investigating a continuing roundup of homeless people and street vendors being carried out in the cities in an exercise named Operation Round-Up.

All this might stop the visit to Zimbabwe by Secretary General Kofi Annan planned for June which is still under discussion.

The Zimbabwean government says it is satisfied with the results of Operation Murambatsvina,the cities are cleaner, crime is down and there are fewer outbreaks of disease.