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UK faces Zimbabwean problem

This image made from a recent video released last Thursday by Solidarity Peace Trust shows children sitting on the ground in Harare, Zimbabwe next to their belongings. Rights groups showed the smuggled video on Thursday of Zimbabweans living in the open in the winter cold after the government tore down their homes in what it describes as an urban renewal project. Police prevent journalists from filming the demolition campaign and the footage was collected clandestinely by the church-based trust. PHOTO: AP

The Church of England demanded on Saturday that the British government stop its forced removal of asylum seekers to troubled Zimbabwe.

The call came as a Cabinet rift over this emotive issue threatened to widen, with ministers understood to have expressed profound concerns about the government returning people to a country whose President, Robert Mugabe, is under attack for abuses of human rights.

One senior government source said the Home Office (interior ministry) policy of forced returns was "outrageous." The disquiet comes as fears grow over conditions in Zimbabwe, where the homes of opposition activists have been razed to the ground by Mugabe's soldiers recently.

"The worsening situation as Mugabe bulldozes people's homes means that we can't guarantee people's safety. I find it incredible that we are still sending people back," the government source said.

The Church's call for the government to act was unusual. "There is suffering and danger facing those asylum seekers deported to Zimbabwe," a spokesman said.

"The situation there demands a compassionate response from our government and an urgent reassessment of their policy," he said.

It is understood some Foreign Office officials have privately expressed alarm that the Home Office is continuing with the returns.

One official was quoted this weekend as saying that the Home Office needed to explain "why they think it is a safe place to send anyone who has defied Mugabe."

The government ended a two-year ban on these enforced removals last November on Foreign Office advice. But it is believed the worsening situation in Zimbabwe has prompted calls for a rethink.

The Labour MP Kate Hoey, who paid a visit to Zimbabwe earlier this year, called on the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to act.

"The officials I speak to keep saying that this is a political decision. In the end Charles Clarke will have to be involved," Hoey said.

"No one is suggesting these people be given the right to stay for ever but the situation has deteriorated so much that we can't send people back. Anyone coming off a plane in Zimbabwe from Britain is seen as anti-Mugabe," she said.

The continued removal has sparked protests in asylum centers across the UK. Yesterday scores of Zimbabweans in the centers completed the third day of a hunger strike.

They were angry at the decision to remove a well-known opponent of Mugabe, Crispen Kulinji, who is being held at Campsfield detention center in Oxfordshire.

Following a parliamentary question tabled by Hoey, Kulinji's removal, scheduled for 10.30pm Saturday night,was deferred. Campaigners have also raised concerns about conditions in the centers.
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