[mamazig]

200,000 people and counting are homeless because of Mugabe's campaign to rid the countryside of his opposers...what's next?? I heard about it first on NPR the other morning http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4697534 and then NBC had a big story this evening with heartwrenching images of young children at an orphanage about to be demolished. I can't find a link yet on MSNBC for the story.

 

[calpurnia]

Another link here from the Mail & Guardian, best newspaper ever for Africa stories in my opinion.

 

[calpurnia]

Some developments... Especially interesting re: the farms, methinks.

Quote:

Police spokesperson Austin Chikwavara said his force has started tearing down shacks and kiosks found at major crossroads in Chirumanzu, Umvuma and Lalapanzi in the Midlands area, 200km - 300km south of the capital, Harare. Another police spokesperson, who was not identified, told the station that police are also demolishing homes built without permission on some of the thousands of farms seized from their white owners for redistribution to black Zimbabweans. <snip> The government's Operation Murambatsvina [or Drive Out Trash], has already left more than 250 000 city dwellers homeless in the winter cold. Police also have arrested more than 30 000 vendors, accusing them of dealing in black market goods and attempting to sabotage Zimbabwe's failing economy. <snip> "The government wants to depopulate urban areas ahead of the 2008 elections and recreate a rural peasantry in which voters are brought under the control of local chiefs and Mugabe's militias," Sydney Masamvu, an analyst from the International Crisis Group think tank, said in a statement on Friday.

more here