UN condemns Zimbabwe bulldozings

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The United Nations has broken their silence on the practice in Zimbabwe of bulldozing urban slums, telling that nation in a report that it must stop the practice that has left 700,000 people homeless or jobless or both and has affected up to 2.4 million more. The report, commissioned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and written by the Tanzanian director of the UN-Habitat agency based in Nairobi, Kenya, said that the program has been carried out in a manner that has been indifferent to the human suffering that it has caused and has come down especially hard on the young, the elderly, the poor, and widows and orphans. The report breaks the UN silence on an issue that the United States and European members of the organization have been trying to get on the agenda for some time. African members of the Security Council and China, on the other hand, had been opposed to any attention to the issue. Still, it is believed that South Africa recently refused a $1 billion dollar loan to the country, which President Mugabe had been seeking as a bailout for the nations $4.5 billion dollar foreign debt, unless Mr. Mugabe halts the operation. The government of Zimbabwe has dismissed criticisms of the destruction and the Foreign Minister of the country called the UN report judgmental and said that bias against the operation was built into it. The Zimbabwean government, which calls the destruction of the slums Operation Restore Order, has claimed that its actions are necessary to crack down on lawlessness and black market activities. But the report was careful not to blame Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe for the program and characterizes it as based on improper advice from a few individuals. The report does urge a government investigation of the operation.