Campaign to prevent mass Harare evictions to get underway

The groups, including the Zimbabwe chapter of rights group Amnesty International have objected strongly to the plans by the Harare City Council to carry out forced evictions of people in informal settlements around the city. The pending evictions have generated restlessness and panic among residents of Harare who feel that the move is unfair and violates residents right to shelter. Last week, Amnesty International expressed concern for the estimated 200 people in an informal settlement in Gunhill, and thousands of informal traders across the city that are being targeted for evictions. Amnesty explained that most of the people being targeted were already victims of 2005s Operation Murambatsvina.

Four years on, the authorities have failed to provide an effective remedy to the victims, and as a result many continue to be at risk of being forcibly removed from both their homes and their informal businesses, Amnesty said.
Earlier this month the Deputy Mayor of the Harare city council stated that the city authorities had considered evicting people from illegal settlements and market places to restore order. The Deputy Mayor claimed that the targeted people were posing a health hazard and violating city by-laws.

CHRAs Chairman Simbarashe Moyo on Thursday said the most worrying issue is that contrary to the arguments regarding health hazards, which the group said is reasonable in the light of the recent cholera outbreak, there is no clear plan of resettlement of the affected people in compliance with international norms on evictions. Moyo added that there has been a total absence of consultations and agreed solutions with the members affected, and the evictions are coming as mere directives.
Effectively, this is a disregard for human rights, the CHRA official said
Moyo continued that the association has received reliable information that the City of Harare has not made any plans for alternative accommodation for the affected residents.

One of the Harare City Councilors only highlighted that the settlers might be put at Caledonia Farm in Mabvuku, a place that neither has sanitary facilities nor readily built houses, Moyo explained.
He continued that, if the city intends to go ahead with the evictions, it must at the very least give three months notice to the traders affected, and the city must make suitable alternative arrangements for the evictees.

In this regard, representatives from CHRA, Amnesty International, the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Traders Association, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the Zimbabwe Chamber of Cooperative Housing, and representatives from the Gunhill settlements and Newlands Arts and Crafts met to deliberate on the issue and came up with a strategic campaign against the threats. The strategy will include an aggressive media campaign through opinion letters and alerts, as well as letters of petition addressed to the Ministry of Local Government, Harare Councilors and Parliamentarians.
A meeting is also set to go ahead with the citys Mayor and his deputy next Wednesday to discuss the issue.