Protest government evictions in Zimbabwe

Habitat International Coalition
Housing and Land Rights Network

Urgent Action Appeal: 200,000 people evicted in two weeks and another million threatened in Zimbabwe

The Coordination Office of the Housing and Land Rights Network of Habitat
International Coalition (HIC-HLRN) requests your URGENT intervention in
the following situation in Zimbabwe.

Brief description of the situation

HIC-HLRN repeatedly has received alarming information from local civil
society sources of massive evictions in throughout Zimbabwe that already
have rendered 200,000 people homeless in two weeks. Some 30,000 street
vendors and people working informally have been detained and if the
eviction drive continues, “the estimates are that 2 to 3 million people
could be affected, which is about a quarter of (Zimbabwe's) population,"
as M. Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing
warned in a press conference on 3 June. Most victims are now sleeping in
the streets and in the open countryside, when the country is in winter
season. Two cases of children dying due to the hardship caused by the
destruction of theirs homes in winter time have already been reported. In
latest newspapers updates on the situation on 3 June, Zimbabwe's police
said their operation against street traders and illegal housing has
entered its final day, but as of 7 June, evictions were still going on.

The government labeled the eviction drive Operation Murambatsvina, which
means “drive out the rubbish.” The operation has happened without any
notice, except apparently in Harare, where government-appointed Mayor
Sekesai Makwavarara gave inhabitants notice of eviction in May, and told
them that they had until July 2005 to vacate. However, evictions started
in different places in the country as early as 17 May and, in the night of
26 May, authorities forcibly drove more than 10,000 people from their
homes in the informal settlement of Hatcliffe Extension in northern Harare
alone.

According to Trudy Stevenson, a Member of Parliament for Hatcliffe
Extension area, 3,000 police were present during the eviction, thus
impeding any possibility for the victims to try and fight back. All
sources have confirmed and denounced this excessive use of force that has
prevented not only any opposition to the illegal evictions, but also
systematic and organized data collection, as people are afraid to tell
what happened to them. Interviewers also need police permission to get to
some of the affected members. As the Special Rapporteur mentioned in his
press conference on 3 June, “[t]he evictions have been carried out by
police forces that, besides destroying the dwellers property, have
allegedly beaten residents who try to defend their human right to adequate
housing.”
Moreover, the immediate people’s concerns are to get the children out of
the cold and find a place, where to store their belongings. Finally,
according to local organizations trying to provide assistance to the
victims, intimidation of some of the community leaders (of federations and
cooperatives) was already underway on 2 June.

Most people affected live in informal shacks in and around the cities,
while others were actually legal residents. Hatcliffe Extension is a
proper site-and-service scheme, and people had paid Z$300,000 per stand
last year for their lease documents. They were therefore legally there.
Others are housing organizations members, who have lease agreements, had
been officially allocated stands by either the government or the local
authority, and had moved on to site still living in temporary shelters
while construction was taking place. Moreover, many settlements had
already received improvements and some basic services—like water and
electricity; one of them even had a school—although they were still
considered informal.
However, the vast majority of evicted residents have not been offered any
alternative place to settle and have been told to go back to the rural
areas they originally come from, but have no means of subsistence.

When most reports are about Harare and its surroundings, people from
various parts of the country actually have been affected or are
threatened, namely Bulawayo, Victoria falls, Chitungwiza, Chipinge,
Kariba, Chinhoyi, Beitbridge and Gwanda. Victoria falls, Harare and Mutare
are the worst affected. 54 residents of Hatcliffe Extension community has
filed a court action through the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights that
was heard on 1 June, but the court judged the eviction lawful under the
argument that the cooperative had not filed proper building plans. The
community is appealing the decision.

A group of local organizations and cooperatives has been organizing
rapidly, so as to respond to the humanitarian crisis and mobilize national
and international pressure. The cooperatives especially have been all the
more surprised and appalled by the evictions, particularly as the
Government itself had entrusted them to help poor Zimbabweans achieve
better living conditions. Today, many of the evictees were residents of
these same cooperatives, through which some had obtained commercial stands
legally.

Background information
According to information received, some officials have justified the
Operation Murambatsvina as an urgent measure to “rid the capital of
illegal structures, businesses and criminal activities.” Harare’s
government-appointed Mayor Sekesai Makwavara also said in a statement e
that "[t]he attitude of the members of the public as well as some city
officials has led to the point whereby Harare has lost its glow. We are
determined to get it back." However, people on the ground and observers
think that the operation is a measure of collective punishment and
repression of potential uprising against the people who voted for the
opposition party in the recent elections.

While the international community has denounced the way these elections
took place, the social situation is explosive. After seven years of
unprecedented economic decline, 80 percent of the work force is unemployed
and 4 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people have emigrated. Michael
Davies, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents Association, said more
than half of the capital's population of 2 million to 3 million people
live in housing marked for demolition. The current evictions exclude all
the people, who came from abandoned rural areas to cities to look for a
minimum to survive. Thus, as the Special Rapporteur pointed out in a 3
June press conference, "We are seeing in the world, and Zimbabwe is a good
example now, the creation of a new kind of apartheid where the rich and
the poor are being segregated."

International Law
Under most circumstances, forced evictions are prima facie in violation of
international law. These mass evictions primarily have grossly violated
200,000 people’s human right to adequate housing, but also have had an
impact on the dwellers’ congruent rights linked to adequate housing, such
as the right to food, right to water, right to health, right to education
and the right to earn a livelihood. In the right to adequate housing, the
Zimbabwean authorities have denied in particular the following elements:
legal security of tenure and freedom from dispossession; information;
participation and self-expression; and resettlement. All are recognized in
international law, especially in the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights that Zimbabwe has ratified on 13 August 1991.

These rights are also emphasized in General Comments no. 4 (1991) and no.
7
(1997) of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (CESCR), which state that "forced evictions are prima facie
incompatible with the provisions of the Covenant and can only be carried
out under specific circumstances", imposing certain requirements which
State parties to the Covenant must respect, including the necessity to
inform the affected people, agree on a plan with them, and provide
adequate compensation.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing recently
stressed that “forced evictions carried out in the manner alleged would
constitute a gross violation of human rights, in particular of the right
to adequate housing, as has been stressed by a unanimously adopted
resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights” (see resolution
E/CN.4/RES/1993/77).
In general, women and children are always the most affected by forced
evictions, especially when in already vulnerable conditions (widows,
orphans), thus this type of mass action grossly violates their rights, as
enshrined in international law as well.

Zimbabwe also ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on 12 June 1991. CEDAW’s Article
14.2(h) requires States to ensure adequate living conditions for women in
rural areas. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Zimbabwe
ratified on 11 October 1990, specifically requires that States protect
children’s right to adequate housing (Article 27.3). The International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Zimbabwe on 13 August
1991, prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and/or punishment
(Articles 7) and the arbitrary use of force (Article 17). The evictions
currently underway in Zimbabwe are in violation of all of these binding
international norms.

If evictions take place at all, international law and expressed consensus
establish that they can legally occur only in exceptional circumstances
and in conformity with human rights criteria. These include requirements
of consultation, due process, consent, ensuring alternative housing in
advance, and fair compensation, as set forth by the Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in General Comment No. 7.

At the regional level, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
also established that authorities are required to explore alternatives and
option with the affected community prior to eviction, to provide adequate
notice and information, to assure the availability of replacement
accommodation, as well as an opportunity to appeal an eviction order. As
in CESCR’s General Comment No. 7, the African jurisprudence affirms that
no one may be made homeless as a result of an eviction. (See Social and
Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and The Centre for Economic and
Social Rights (CESR) v. Nigeria, 2001.[1])

While the Zimbabwean authorities have claimed that these cruel evictions
are based on the requirements of law enforcement, they also have
contravened the minimum requirements of law-enforcement official by using
force outside the principles of necessity and proportionality, as
elaborated in the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Article
3), which the General Assembly adopted in resolution 34/169, 17 December
1979. Moreover, the nature of the evictions also violates the General
Provisions of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by
Law Enforcement Officials (1990). The African Charter on Human and
People’s Rights affirms these same principles, in particular under Article
6, which recognizes the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest or
detention.

These violations may also constitute crimes against humanity. The Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court has codified the deliberately
widespread or systematic transfer of a civilian population as a crime
against humanity, under Article 7(1)(d) and Article 7(2)(d). The present
forcible transfer of large parts of the Zimbabwean population to rural
areas, relegates them to a state of dispossession, deepened
impoverishment, and without a source of livelihood or means of sustenance.
The grave conditions resulting from these evictions give argument to the
suggestion that the Security Council direct the prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute these
serious crimes.

Action requested

Please write to the authorities in Zimbabwe, urging them to:
· immediately cease the mass evictions taking place around the
country;
· take urgent measures to ensure that adequate alternative housing
is immediately provided for already displaced populations, now reportedly
homeless;
· initiate dialogue with affected communities in accordance with
human rights principles, especially CESCR General Comment no. 7;
· investigate and prosecute the use of excessive force by the
police during the current eviction drive;
· comply with its obligations under international law and respect
all its citizens’ right to adequate housing—including legal security of
tenure and freedom from dispossession; information; participation and
self-expression; and resettlement—, but also the right to food, right to
water, right to health, right to education and the right to earn a
livelihood.

Addresses
H.E. Simbarashe Simbanenduku Mumbengegwi Minister of Foreign Affairs
Munhumutapa Building Samora Machel Avenue Box 4240 Harare, Republic of
Zimbabwe
Fax: +263 (0)4705–161
+263 (0)4 725–051 [zero required only when faxing from inside Zimbabwe]

H.E. Ambassador C. Chipaziwa
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Zimbabwe to the United Nations
(Geneva)
Chemin William Barbey 27
1292 Chambésy
Geneva, Switzerland
E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: +41 (0)22 758–3044 [zero required only when faxing from inside
Switzerland]

H.E. Ambassador Tichaona Joseph B. Jokonya Permanent Mission of the
Republic of Zimbabwe to United Nations Headquarters
128 East 56th Street
New York, NY 10022
Fax: +1 212 308–6705
E-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Miloon Kothari
UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing
E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: +41(0)22 917–9010

Mr. Manfred Nowak
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
E-mail: [email protected]

**************
Geneva – Cairo…, 10 June 2005

Kindly inform HIC-HLRN and… of any action undertaken quoting the code of
this appeal in your reply to: [email protected].
**************
Sample letter to Zimbabwean authorities

We have been informed by Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land
Rights Network (HIC-HLRN) that the Government of Zimbabwe is carrying out
massive evictions in throughout Zimbabwe that already have rendered
200,000 people homeless in two weeks. Some 30,000 street vendors and
people working informally have been detained and if the eviction drive
continues, 2 to 3 million people could be affected. Most victims are now
sleeping in the streets and without shelter in the countryside, when the
country is in winter season. At least two children have died as a result
of the harsh conditions of homelessness.

The government’s Operation Murambatsvina has happened without any notice,
except apparently in Harare, where government-appointed Mayor Sekesai
Makwavarara gave inhabitants notice of eviction in May, and told them that
they had until July 2005 to vacate. However, evictions started in
different places in the country as early as 17 May and, in the night of 26
May, authorities forcibly drove more than 10,000 people from their homes
in the informal settlement of Hatcliffe Extension in northern Harare
alone.

The overwhelming presence of police at the scene have engaged in excessive
use of force added to the deprivation arising from these illegal evictions

Most victims are those who have been living in informal shacks in and
around the cities, while others were legal residents, such as those in
Hatcliffe Extension. The vast majority of evicted residents have not been
offered any alternative place to settle, and the authorities have told
them only to go back to the rural areas wherever they come from. If they
do so, they will have no means of subsistence.

Today, many of the evictees are legal residents from previously
government-supported cooperatives that were supposed to help poor
Zimbabweans achieve better living conditions. Eviction has left them
destitute and demoralized.

Under most circumstances, forced evictions are prima facie in violation of
international law. These mass evictions already have grossly violated
200,000 people’s human right to adequate housing, but also have had an
impact on the dwellers’ congruent rights linked to adequate housing, such
as the right to food, right to water, right to health, right to education
and the right to earn a livelihood. In the right to adequate housing, the
Zimbabwean authorities have denied in particular the following elements:
legal security of tenure and freedom from dispossession; information;
participation and self-expression; and resettlement. All are recognized in
international law, especially in the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights that Zimbabwe has ratified on 13 August 1991.

These rights are also emphasized in General Comments no. 4 (1991) and no.
7
(1997) of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (CESCR), which state that "forced evictions are prima facie
incompatible with the provisions of the Covenant and can only be carried
out under specific circumstances", imposing certain requirements which
State parties to the Covenant must respect, including the necessity to
inform the affected people, agree on a plan with them, and provide
adequate compensation.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing recently
stressed that “forced evictions carried out in the manner alleged would
constitute a gross violation of human rights, in particular of the right
to adequate housing, as has been stressed by a unanimously adopted
resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights” (see resolution
E/CN.4/RES/1993/77).
In general, women and children are always the most affected by forced
evictions, especially when in already vulnerable conditions (widows,
orphans), thus this type of mass action grossly violates their rights, as
enshrined in international law as well.

Zimbabwe also ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on 12 June 1991. CEDAW’s Article
14.2(h) requires States to ensure adequate living conditions for women in
rural areas. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Zimbabwe
ratified on 11 October 1990, specifically requires that States protect
children’s right to adequate housing (Article 27.3). The International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Zimbabwe on 13 August
1991, prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and/or punishment
(Articles 7) and the arbitrary use of force (Article 17). The evictions
currently underway in Zimbabwe are in violation of all of these binding
international norms.

If evictions take place at all, international law and expressed consensus
establish that they can legally occur only in exceptional circumstances
and in conformity with human rights criteria. These include requirements
of consultation, due process, consent, ensuring alternative housing in
advance, and fair compensation, as set forth by the Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in General Comment No. 7.

At the regional level, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
also established that authorities are required to explore alternatives and
option with the affected community prior to eviction, to provide adequate
notice and information, to assure the availability of replacement
accommodation, as well as an opportunity to appeal an eviction order. As
in CESCR’s General Comment No. 7, the African jurisprudence affirms that
no one may be made homeless as a result of an eviction. (See Social and
Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and The Centre for Economic and
Social Rights (CESR) v. Nigeria, 2001.[2])

While the Zimbabwean authorities have claimed that these cruel evictions
are based on the requirements of law enforcement, they also have
contravened the minimum requirements of law-enforcement official by using
force outside the principles of necessity and proportionality, as
elaborated in the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (Article
3), which the General Assembly adopted in resolution 34/169, 17 December
1979. Moreover, the nature of the evictions also violates the General
Provisions of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by
Law Enforcement Officials (1990). The African Charter on Human and
People’s Rights affirms these same principles, in particular under Article
6, which recognizes the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest or
detention.

These violations may also constitute crimes against humanity. The Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court has codified the deliberately
widespread or systematic transfer of a civilian population as a crime
against humanity, under Article 7(1)(d) and Article 7(2)(d). The present
forcible transfer of large parts of the Zimbabwean population to rural
areas, relegates them to a state of dispossession, deepened
impoverishment, and without a source of livelihood or means of sustenance.
The grave conditions resulting from these evictions give argument to the
suggestion that the Security Council direct the prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute these
serious crimes.

Your Excellency,

We urge you to do your utmost to reverse this tragic destruction of lives
and property. An urgent and effective response is required also to reduce
the already heavy toll that the current evictions have taken on the
internal and external legitimacy of the Zimbabwean government. This can be
achieved through the following actions:
· immediately cease the mass evictions taking place around the
country;
· to ensure that adequate alternative housing is immediately
provided for already displaced populations;
· initiate dialogue with affected communities in accordance with
human rights principles, especially CESCR General Comment no. 7;
· investigate and prosecute the use of excessive force by the
police during the current eviction drive;
· comply with the State’s obligations under international law to
respect everyone’s right to adequate housing, including legal security of
tenure and freedom from dispossession; information; participation and
self-expression; and resettlement; as well as the rights to food, water,
health, education and the right to earn a livelihood.

Thanking you in advance for your attention to this matter, we look forward
to hearing from about your remedial response.

Respectfully,

[Signed]
[Your name and organisation]