A crime against humanity?
The UN Report into Zimbabwe’s “demolition programme” makes for haunting reading. Written by a Tanzanian expert in rural economics, Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, the report says the operation has left three quarters of a million people homeless, creating a “humanitarian crisis of immense proportions”. The operation was “carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering”, had left Zimbabwe in a “virtual state of emergency”, and could amount to a crime against humanity.
Mrs Tibaijuka wrote:
The unplanned and over-zealous manner in which the Operation was carried out has unleashed chaos and untold human suffering. It has created a state of emergency as tens of thousands of families and vulnerable women and children are left in the open without protection from the elements, without access to adequate water and sanitation or health care, and without food security. Such conditions are clearly life-threatening. In human settlements terms, the Operation has rendered over half a million people, previously housed in so-called substandard dwellings, either homeless or living with friends and relatives in overcrowded and health-threatening conditions. In economic terms, the Operation has destroyed and seriously disrupted the livelihoods of millions of people who were coping, however poorly, with the consequences of a prolonged economic crisis. Politically, the Operation has exacerbated an already tense and polarized climate characterized by mistrust and fear.
This report should give both the Government and NZ Cricket pause for thought. Do we really want our cricketers to be sent into the middle of this state of emergency? Do we really want them in Zimbabwe at a time when Robert Mugabe is in the middle of committing a crime against humanity?
And then there’s also the complete economic breakdown of Zimbabwe. As NZPA reports:
New Zealand’s cricketers could be stranded in Zimbabwe because the country is running out of fuel, the Green Party said last night in a last-ditch attempt to stop the tour.
The Black Caps are due to start a tour of Zimbabwe early next month, and the Greens are leading a campaign to stop them going in protest against president Robert Mugabe’s human rights abuses.
The Government has refused to legislate to stop the tour, which would be the only way for the team to avoid heavy fines imposed by the International Cricket Council.
Last night Greens co-leader Rod Donald cited British media reports saying fuel shortages had grounded Air Zimbabwe flights and the cost of petrol had rocketed to $Z120,000 a litre ($NZ16.23).
“If the Black Caps do end up in Zimbabwe, they could find themselves trying to hitch rides to their games,” he said.
“Hitching might work in Harare but it won’t help them get to Bulawayo.”
The team is due to play in Bulawayo, a city several hundred kilometres from the capital Harare.
