Zimbabwe's police force issued a warning to government opponents not to protest President Robert Mugabe's two-week blitz on street traders and urban shack dwellers, saying more forces were deployed to suppress any disturbances.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told state radio they were "out in force to deal with political parties and other non-governmental organizations who are trying to take advantage of the `clean up campaign' to gain political mileage."
Bvudzijena said police had information that protest organizers were "enlisting youths to block roads, creating barricades" and said any cars used for this would be confiscated.
The government's destruction of shacks and eviction of poor residents and street sellers continued despite reports that Mugabe, 81, had ordered a halt to the campaign, which his government says is meant to clean up city slums and restore order. Critics say the action is an attack by the government on its political opposition, which has wide support among the urban poor.
In the northwestern town of Chinhoyi, police arrested 708 vendors and seized large quantities of scarce staples, including sugar, cornmeal and cooking oil, state radio reported. They also arrested 621 gold panners -- the sole source of livelihood for many unemployed.
human rights violation
Leslie Gwindi, spokesman for the government-appointed Harare City Council, said the next phase in the capital would see homeowners heavily fined for not "sprucing up" and repainting their properties, although most say that amid the current economic crisis they cannot afford it. Cement and paint are only available on the black market and at exorbitant prices.
More than 200,000 people have lost their homes and a further 30,000 have been detained since the start of the crackdown on May 19, UN housing expert Miloon Kothari said in Geneva on Friday. He urged the government to halt its campaign of mass evictions, saying it was a clear violation of human rights.
"The vast majority are homeless in the streets," Kothari said."This kind of a mass eviction drive is a classic case where the intention appears to be that Harare become a city for the rich, for the middle class, for those that are well-off ... and the poor are to be pushed away."
Many of those who lost their homes -- often forced by police at gunpoint to demolish the structures themselves -- had formal lease agreements or had rented plots from ruling party militants who had seized white-owned farms on the outskirts of the city with Mugabe's approval.
In a test case Friday, a judge refused a plea by human rights lawyers to ban further demolitions. Judge Tedias Karwi said the occupants of demolished homes had failed to file building plans and the authorities were "within their rights," although "a longer period of notice would have been better."
Karwi is one of a series of new appointees to the bench since internationally respected Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to quit in 2001 after death threats.
Sithembiso Nyoni, Minister of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, told state radio Saturday that "Operation Murambatsivna," or drive out trash, "is not targeting dissenting voices to government -- it is aimed at restoring cleanliness and order in the country."
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, says urban poor are being punished for supporting his party during recent general elections and forced back to rural areas where they can be controlled politically through the denial of access to food.
Amnesty International has also condemned the crackdown, saying it has left whole communities without shelter and destroyed thousands of livelihoods. Kothari, the UN envoy on the right to adequate housing, said that if the current eviction drive continued, 2-3 million people could be affected -- about a quarter of Zimbabwe's population.
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