HARARE - Amnesty International on Sunday released photos showing the effects of those who were evicted and left homeless during the 2005 Operation Murambatsvina.
The photos coincided with the commemoration of independence celebrations on Sunday to mark 30 years of freedom from colonial rule..
“However, the celebration of Zimbabwes independence is marred by the plight of hundreds of thousands of victims of human rights violations for whom freedom and dignity remain out of reach,” read a statement by Amnesty International.
The photographs provide a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people living in informal settlements, set up on the outskirts of Harare after the forced evictions.
The images show their daily struggle to cope under a government that seems unwilling to address past human rights violations and their effects.
“The victims of Operation Murambatsvina are not the only ones who continue to be denied justice. Thousands of victims of state-sponsored human rights violations, from the 1980s in Matabeleland to the 2008 state-sponsored election violence, are still waiting, 30 years after independence,” said Amnesty International.
Researcher Simeon Mawanza who was in Zimbabwe recently met both survivors of the clean up exercise and the brutal 2008 election campaign, in which Mugabe ran against himself in the presidential run-off.
Speaking to SW Radio’s Newsreel on Friday Mawanza said the idea behind releasing the photographs was to show the other side of what is happening in the country.
“Many people are still to realize the rights that people were championing in the liberation war.”
He said most of the people who were displaced in the 2005 clean up exercise were in exactly the same situation, if not worse, than it was at the time. They still had no access to water, housing, health or education facilities.
Commenting on the human rights situation in the country he said the coalition government had not done much to reform the security sector, as evidenced by ongoing abuses.
“One welcomes the fact that they have set up a human rights commission recently but there is no indication how they are going to tackle past human rights violations, including the 2008 violence. After Mugabe lost those elections his security forces launched a brutal crackdown that saw hundreds of MDC activists murdered and tens of thousands tortured, many of whom died months later from their injuries.
Meanwhile Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, addressed a rally in Harare, to mark the occasion on Sunday.
“The leadership of the inclusive government urges you to desist from any acts of violence that will cause harm to others and become a blight on our society,” Mugabe said.
“As Zimbabweans we need to foster an environment of tolerance and treating each other with dignity and respect irrespective of age, gender, race, ethnicity, tribe, political or religious affiliation.”
Mugabe, a former school teacher and leader of the liberation struggle, was forced last year into a power-sharing government with arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister, after a political crisis sparked by a disputed general election in 2008.
Mugabe, now 86, is blamed for the ruin of the country in recent years, as it went from being an agricultural powerhouse and educational beacon, to having a stagnant economy and continuing political crisis.
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