JOHANNESBURG - Human rights group, Amnesty International, has warned governments in Africa to end the practice of forced evictions that leave hundreds of thousands homeless every year. Commemorating World Habitat Day last week, Amnesty International mentioned Zimbabwe alongside Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya and Nigeria where such violations of human rights were common.
“It is completely unacceptable that governments across Africa continue to act in violation of regional and international law, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights,” said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty Internationals Africa Programme Director, in a statement from London.
He said Amnesty would continue mobilising people to defy forced evictions.
The mobilisation of people from all over Africa in defiance of the hugely destructive practice of mass forced evictions carried out by governments continent wide is a wake up call to African leaders. People will not stand by as their homes are illegally destroyed by their government.
Forced evictions have been commonplace in Zimbabwe over the last decade, a development tied to the political crisis that has bedevilled the country. The Mugabe regimes corrupt and violent land reform programme saw commercial farmers and thousands of their workers displaced. There was a recurrence of forced evictions in 2005 when the government embarked on Operation Murambatsvina, destroying the homes and livelihoods of thousands of urban dwellers who had dared to vote for the then opposition party, the MDC.
Post published in: Politics