The ZIMBABWE Situation Our thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe
- may peace, truth and justice prevail.
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Washington Times

Selective angst

By Mark Steyn

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat strongman, destroyed a mosque the other
day. It was in Hatcliffe Extension, a shantytown on the edge of Harare,
razed by the "police." Mr. Mugabe is an equal-opportunity razer: He also
bulldozed a Catholic-run Aids center.
    The government destroyed the town to drive the locals into the
countryside to live on land stolen from white farmers. Quite how that's
meant to benefit any of those involved or the broader needs of Zimbabwe is
beyond me, but then I'm no expert in Afro-Marxist economic theory.

    The point is the world's Muslims seem entirely cool with Infidel Bob
razing a mosque. Unlike the fallout over Newsweek's fraudulent story about
the Koran being flushed down a toilet, no excitable young men went bananas
in Pakistan; no Western progressives berated Mr. Mugabe for his "cultural
insensitivity." And sadly most of the big-shot Muslim spokespersons were
still too busy flaying the Bush administration to whip their subjects into a
frenzy over Hatcliffe Extension's pile of Islamic rubble.
    Last week, Ambassador Atta el-Manan Bakhit of the Organization of the
Islamic Conference called on Washington to show "no leniency" to the
"perpetrators" of "this despicable crime." "This disgraceful conduct of
those soldiers reveal their blatant hatred and disdain for the religion of
millions of Muslims all over the world," said His Excellency. The Egyptian
foreign minister was also in a tizzy. "We denounce in the strongest possible
terms what the Pentagon confirmed about the desecration of the Qu'ran," said
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, calling for strong measures, heads to roll, etc.
    And what was it the Pentagon "confirmed"? That since Gitmo became the
global center of U.S. Koran Desecration operations, there have been five
verifiable instances of official minor "disrespect" for the holy book, three
of them perhaps intentional, which averages out to one incident yearly.
    The same report also turned up 15 documented instances of "disrespect"
by Muslim detainees. "These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping
pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and
urinating on the Quran."
    When 3 times as many detainees as U.S. guards "desecrate" the Koran, it
seems clear the whole Operation Desecration ballyhoo is yet another media
crock and the Organization of the Islamic Conference and all the rest are
complaining about nothing. Or is Koran desecration one of those things like
Jews telling Jewish jokes or gangsta rappers using racial epithets: Are only
devout Muslims allowed to desecrate the Koran? No doubt that's why the
Egyptian foreign minister et al. had no comment on the recent suicide
bombing at a mosque in Kandahar, which killed 20, wounded more than 50 and
presumably desecrated every Koran in the building.
    Yet, as is often the case, the Muslim world's whiney spokespersons have
been effortlessly topped by the old hands of the anti-American left. Thus,
according to Amnesty International, Gitmo is the "gulag of our time."
    Well then, these are diminished times for gulags. According to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, some 15 million to 30 million prisoners Russians
died in the Soviet gulags. By comparison, Guantanamo at its peak held 750
prisoners; now there are 520. None have died in captivity, and, as I wrote
3½ years ago, it has the distinction of being "a camp where the medical
staff outnumber the prisoners." You'll get swifter, cleaner and more
efficient treatment than most Canadians get under socialized health care.
Indeed, it's the only gulag in history where the detainees leave in better
health and weighing more than when they arrive. They're in much better shape
when they get back to their hectic schedule of killing infidels: Of the more
than 200 who've been released, around 5 percent - that's to say, 12 - have
since been recaptured on the battlefield.
    Why would a human-rights organization want to trivialize the murder of
millions in totalitarian death camps by comparing them with a nondeath camp
that flatters every aspect of the inmates' culture? If Gitmo's a gulag, what
words are left for the systemic rape practiced by the butchers of Darfur? Or
is it because they've so exhausted the extremes of their vocabulary on
Guantanamo that the world's progressives have so little to say about real
horrors like Sudan?
    No serious allegation of torture at the camp has been substantiated, and
in the al Qaeda training manual found in Manchester, England, a couple of
years back Rule 18 couldn't be more explicit: When held captive by the
infidel, members must "complain to the court of mistreatment while in
prison" and say "torture was inflicted on them."
    A healthy skepticism would thus seem advisable. Instead, the New York
Times' Thomas Friedman runs around like a hysterical ninny, shrieking that
Washington needs to shut down Guantanamo right now - not because of anything
that occurred there but because of negative "perceptions" in the overseas
press.
    And would caving in to those negative perceptions lead to any better
press? Nobody got killed in Gitmo, so instead America is being flayed as the
planet's No. 1 torturer for being insufficiently respectful to the holy book
of its prisoners, even though the Americans themselves supplied their
prisoners with the holy book, even though Americans who fall into the hands
of the other side get their heads hacked off, even though the prisoners'
co-religionists themselves blow up more mosques and Korans than the Pentagon
ever does, even though the preferred holy book of most Americans is banned
in the home country of many prisoners, where respect for other faiths is
summed up in the headline, "Seven Christians released in Saudi Arabia on
condition they renounce private religious practice."
    That headline ran in the British Catholic newspaper the Universe last
week, by the way. Sadly, no U.S. newspaper found room for the story due to
pressures of space caused by all the "Al Qaeda press secretary denounces
insufficient respect for Koran by Rumsfeld" Page One splashes.
    But sure, go ahead, close Gitmo and wait for the rave reviews from the
media - right after the complaints it's culturally insensitive to rebuild
the World Trade Center when it's the burial site of 10 revered Muslim
martyrs.
    Guantanamo will be remembered not as a byword for torture but for
self-torture, a Western fetish the jihad's spin-doctors understand all too
well.

    Mark Steyn is the senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc.
Publications, senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group,
North American editor for the Spectator, and a nationally syndicated
columnist.

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The Scotsman

Zimbabwe evictions victims forced to eat mice to survive

JANE FIELDS
IN HARARE

ZIMBABWEANS made homeless by president Robert Mugabe's brutal blitz on their
shacks have resorted to eating mice to survive, local media reported
yesterday.

Three weeks after launching Operation Clear Out Trash, Mr Mugabe is
intensifying the crackdown on homes in the capital Harare.

Police will now sweep through blocks of council flats and evict all
"illegal" tenants, it was announced. The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) says the moves are a brutal attack on its supporters.

Tens of thousands of Harare residents have lost their shelter after
paramilitary police burnt down shacks.

Mr Mugabe has defended the operation, saying it is aimed at restoring
"order" to Zimbabwe's cities. But many suspect it is designed to punish
those who voted for the MDC in general elections in March.
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Global Politician
 

Overthrow of Mugabe: Opportunity Lost
Jan Lamprecht - 6/12/2005
It appears that my predictions from several months ago that Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is dying and is losing influence are coming true. At this point, one can pretty much write off Zimbabwe. Even though the conditions in Zimbabwe are absolutely perfect for a fantastic counter-revolution - there are no real leaders there and no men brave enough to fight, or clever enough to actually think up a workable strategy. Virtually all the Whites have left (and they had the main skills needed for the job if only the Blacks actually trusted them), and the Blacks have no fight in them! It’s sad really. Napoleon-like dictator Robert Mugabe wins again! I take my hat off to the cunning old cretin. And yet, the war there is so winnable!

Let me tell you all something that we can learn from this: I fear that nothing will change in the political situation in southern Africa until the day when White people take up arms! It looks to me as if the Blacks in Zimbabwe, and the non-Xhosa Blacks in South Africa (e.g. Zulus) do not have the courage, will and direction. Whites, who have been driven back in the past, must start thinking about the long term, about how we will fight for our survival one day because of the very failure of Blacks who were our friends and allies.

Here in South Africa, I have long regarded Tony Leon, the leader of our opposition, as a sort of "pretty boy" who will be running for cover when the real trouble comes. Similarly in Zimbabwe, the MDC leaders are fools. I talked to them. I tried to talk sense into them - years ago. I told them, WAR, WAR, WAR. I never believed that strikes alone could succeed. The MDC waited too long and they wimped out when the moment came for courage.

I told Black Zimbabweans in the resistance: "If you guys don't prepare for war, then Mugabe is going to outwit and defeat you." Some of those Blacks pretended that they really were going to do something. In the end, they were more interested in stealing money and lining their own pockets than in actually organizing real resistance against Mugabe. They were amateurs who thought that fighting Mugabe was a game and that they were destined by God to win. I told them it wouldn't be easy and that the only way to get rid of the old scumbag would require rivers of blood to flow - but it was doable because the vast majority of the population hates him, and if they smell resistance and victory, they will join, while his soldiers and police will defect. In fact, his police and soldiers were quite scared of the MDC two years ago, and some were preparing to switch sides if they saw a real revolution starting in the streets. But the MDC did not seize the moment at the right time. That moment may never come again.

It is sad really because they held victory in the palm of their hands if they had just gone about the business seriously.

Jan Lamprecht was born and raised in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, during the "Bush War", which resulted in Robert Mugabe coming to power. He was educated in Harare, the capital of the country, before leaving for South Africa, where he spent some time in the Navy. He wrote a book called "Government by Deception" about African politics related to Zimbabwe and the effects Mugabe's policies may have on other countries.

He publishes a popular, highly "politically-incorrect" web site AfricanCrisis.org
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Cape Times

      Why the deafening silence on Robert Mugabe's purge of the poor?
      June 13, 2005

      The current number of people rendered homeless in the cities of
Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe's bulldozers, has now reached a conservatively
estimated 250 000.

      An unknown number have been deprived of their income. 23 000 arrested.
And so far, four have died of the cold and/or hunger. The bulldozers are
still busy.

      Mugabe justified his actions by claiming that he is cleaning up the
cities. On a small point of policy: the regulation of street trading and
enforcement of housing regulations in Zimbabwe is a matter for the municipal
authorities, and is arguably not in the remit of national government.

      The policy of municipal authorities in Zimbabwe on urban poverty
alleviation - policy supported by, among others, the United Nations
Municipal Development Programme and Habitat - has for some time been to
support Zimbabwean urbanites' efforts at upliftment, through informal sector
employment and self-help housing.

      This policy has been the result of implicit recognition of an
incapacity within the formal sector to provide employment for them, and an
inadequacy in the housing allocations from central governments coffers to
house them.

      In any event, as a signatory to the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and member of the Commission on Human
Rights, Mugabe is in breach of international human rights law - wherein
forced evictions constitute a gross violation of human rights (UN Human
Rights Commission, June 3).

      Both the UN Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International have
called for the evictions to cease and for compensation and assistance to be
given.

      These are organisations which even our current government could not
accuse of having a neo-colonial agenda. You may remember a time when our
current political elite actually set much store by their calls for action.

      But, perhaps it is now true to say of the ANC, that to them some
people's human rights are more important than others. And the rights of the
poor are apparently least important of all.

      The ANC government, it seems, is so supportive of Mugabe's current
"clean-up" that it kindly supplied spare parts which will enable Mugabe's
armed forces to continue their intimidation of would-be protesters by
hovering overhead in military helicopters - as they did last week -
according to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) (BBC News, June 9).

      Perhaps most shocking of all is our media's response. Almost
overnight, 250 000 people are made homeless and large numbers income-less in
a neighbouring country.

      At best, our newspapers have offered us a story from the wire
services, or syndicated from one of the international newspapers.

      Compare this to the comparative hue and cry in the South African media
at the plight of the (need I say white?) farmers at the height of the
government-sanctioned land invasions in Zimbabwe. Where is the analysis of
Mugabe's motives and actions?

      Is the South African public really going to be fed the rather dubious
line that these evictions and closures are not politically motivated? Does
it not strike our newspapers as coincidental that it is in the opposition
MDC strongholds that this "clean-up" is being conducted?

      But, at least the newspapers have given the story some coverage - on
television: virtual silence.

      Once again: our neighbours, the workers and the poorest of the poor,
have been made homeless, without income, without assistance, in mid-winter.

      These are real people. Four have already died. Many more will die of
cold and hunger alone. But where will it end? It is perhaps timely to recall
the tens of thousands of dissenting voices that Mugabe silenced in
Matabeleland, who "disappeared" in the early 1980s. We must not let these
people disappear. We must speak out.

      Or by our silence, we are surely complicit.

      K Rennie
      Cape Town

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Kansas City Star

     Posted on Sun, Jun. 12, 2005

      Bush to showcase Africa policies in meetings with African leaders

      BY WILLIAM DOUGLAS

      Knight Ridder Newspapers

      WASHINGTON - (KRT) - When he took office four years ago, President
Bush vowed to make Africa a priority, a promise that some critics took as an
attempt to make people forget his claim during the 2000 presidential
campaign that Africa doesn't fit into the United States' national strategic
interests.

      Since then, Bush has won over some skeptics by pledging $15 billion to
battle HIV and AIDS in Africa, tripling development aid to the sub-Saharan
region to $3.2 billion, creating the Millennium Challenge initiative to
provide money to countries anywhere in the world that practice good
governance and sound economic policies, and by brokering a peace agreement
between Sudan's government and southern rebels that ended a 21-year civil
war.

      "He's done better than former President Clinton, who gave us a lot in
terms of style but the dollars weren't there," said Melvin Foote, executive
director for the Constituency for Africa, a group that fosters greater ties
between American and African organizations.

      Bush will once again showcase his African agenda Monday when he meets
with presidents of Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Niger at the White
House to discuss democracy, free trade, HIV/AIDS and economic development
and security on the continent.

      But while some Africa experts like Foote, a Democrat, praise Bush's
work on the continent, others remain unconvinced. They say the president has
promised a lot and delivered little, given the magnitude of the problems
that afflict African nations.

      He has come up billions of dollars short in promised funding for his
Millennium Challenge program, and only one African country, Madagascar, has
qualified for aid. The other recipient, Honduras, is in Central America.

      Worse, critics contend, Bush hasn't moved aggressively to help stem
atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region despite having called the situation
there genocide against black non-Arabs by Arab militias known as the
janjaweed.

      "He's taken a page from the Clinton administration, he's done
wonderfully on public relations, but he's done little for Africans," said
Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action, a nonprofit group
dedicated to reshaping U.S. policy towards Africa. "Africa's suffering is
being manipulated to present the administration's compassionate conservative
agenda."

      White House officials call such assertions nonsense.

      "The president is leading the way in making a strong commitment in
Africa," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "If you look at
the actions we've taken, it shows a strong commitment to the continent and
to saving lives."

      Bush's focus on Africa comes at a time when the continent has become
an international concern, prompted by a seemingly endless wave of
humanitarian crises, worries that massive poverty will make the continent
the next recruiting station for terrorists, and fears about the spread of
HIV and AIDS. The virus and disease has already spread to 25 million
Africans.

      British Prime Minister Tony Blair sees increased African aid and debt
relief as the solutions for Africa's problems and made them part of the
platform for his successful reelection campaign.

      Blair is hosting next month's Group of Eight Summit - an annual
gathering of the world's top eight industrialized nations - in Scotland and
intends to make Africa the focal point of the two-day meeting. The plight of
the continent is also slated to be among the main topics during the United
Nations General Assembly and the World Trade Organization later this year.

      As G-8 host and the incoming president of the European Union, Blair
has been trying to persuade wealthy nations like the United States to double
their contributions to Africa development to $25 billion a year and forgive
100 percent of African international debt.

      Bush rejected Blair's proposal when the prime minister visited the
White House last week. Instead, Bush pledged $674 million in U.S.
humanitarian aid for Africa. U.S. officials backed the decision Saturday in
London to cancel $40 billion of international debt from 18 countries that
include the African nations of Ghana, Mali, Benin, and Ethiopia.

      Bush has been reluctant to simply increase aid or erase debt of
troubled nations, fearing that such moves would reward poorly run or corrupt
governments. Instead, he prefers doling out aid through performance-based
measures like the Millennium Challenge initiative.

      To qualify for grants, countries must show they are striving to adhere
to law, root out corruption, respect human rights and promote economic
freedom.

      Through the initiative, Bush promised in 2002 to increase development
assistance by 50 percent over three years, resulting in an annual increase
of $5 billion by fiscal year 2006. But in his fiscal year 2006 budget, Bush
asked for $3 billion for Millennium Challenge funding, $2 billion less than
he'd promised.

      Still, some Africa analysts believe Bush's approach is a sound one.

      "Do you really want to write off Zimbabwe's debt?" said Roger Bate,
who analyzes diseases in developing countries for the American Enterprise
Institute. "The history of (African) aid for the last 50 years is that it
has failed. There's a lot of validity to the U.S. approach."

      ---

      © 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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Business Day

Posted to the web on: 13 June 2005
Africa's youth a far cry from its dinosaur leaders
Dianna Games

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IF AFRICA's leaders do not have the courage to do what needs to be done to
move the continent forward, they should get out of the way because there are
many young people behind them that do.

This was one of the most heartening sentiments to come out of the recent
African Economic Summit in Cape Town, which was awash with noble sentiments
and good ideas.

Nicky Newton-King, of the JSE Securities Exchange SA, said Africa's youth
recognised the unique crossroads that the continent was facing and were
impatient to take up the opportunities it represented. The youth, she said,
were willing to think differently about solutions to Africa's challenges.

The notion of an army of young people with new ideas, new paradigms for
development, a greater belief in internal growth and no patience with
dinosaur politicians, is an inspiring one.

But, in fact, the problematic leaders on our continent are the very ones who
are not likely to get out of the way. Africa is likely to be bogged down for
some time in poor governance, an over- reliance on outside solutions for
growth and development, an inability to think laterally about enduring
problems, and a continuing search for quick fixes such as increased aid and
debt relief.

There is still too much finger- pointing and searching for scapegoats for
Africa's predicament. I once heard an Indian politician asked what the
secret of India's success was. He replied that India had been able to
progress because it had stopped looking back to find out who was to blame
for past failures and was looking forward to see how it could succeed.

The Cape Town summit was heartening in part because it did just that - look
forward to a new Africa and discuss how to get there. But the event was also
not without its reality checks.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, for example, wondered why the world was
not catching on that the continent was now a very different place. Moments
later he addressed a press conference at which he steadfastly supported
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose actions are among the prime
reasons people elsewhere are just not getting the point about the "new,
improved" Africa.

President Thabo Mbeki, responding to an assertion from a Ghanaian that most
African leaders were more interested in staying in power than worrying about
economic growth, said this was not the case. All African leaders, he said,
were worried about growth but some of them just did not know how to go about
it.

That, surely, is the problem - many people in power are not up to the task
of improving Africa.

The wealth of business opportunities on a continent which has the highest
returns on growth of any region were highlighted at every turn.

But for all the talk of how Africans must walk their own talk, and
discussion of how to engender sustainable growth, the conference eventually
ended up focusing on aid and debt relief, both of them externally generated
support mechanisms.

Even the talk about trade was more focused on opening western markets than
looking at ways Africans themselves could boost intra-African trade,
ignoring the reality that trade constraints imposed by Africans on each
other were as great as any imposed by developed countries.

The trouble with aid, and even debt relief, is the danger posed by the
notion of "free money", whether that is reality or not. The premise of help
from outside Africa removes the imperative for those governments still not
with the programme to take more responsibility for internal growth.

Yes, there are many carrot-and-stick approaches envisaged in the handling of
increased aid and money unlocked by debt relief, both of which may boost
growth prospects if used well.

But neither of these is likely to encourage the required paradigm shift in
how Africa can help itself. The notion of change is still too strongly tied
to what the developed countries can do for us.

In the news just last week we heard that an African, believed to have stowed
away in Senegal on a South African Airways plane bound for New York, came to
a sticky end when the aircraft's landing gear ground him to pieces in his
hiding place.

Presumably he, like millions of other Africans, was simply wanting to find a
better life overseas.

If Africa wants the good news to get out, leaders must move a lot faster to
create opportunities for their own people, to forestall such desperate acts.

Games is a director of Africa @ Work, a research, publishing and events
company.
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Business Day

Posted to the web on: 13 June 2005
Mugabe's foes count cost of strike 'flop'
Michael Hartnack

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sapa-AP

HARARE - Opponents of President Robert Mugabe's 25-year rule have conceded
that their planned national two-day protest against mass evictions and
arrests failed to "paralyse" the country as hoped.

Opposition movement Broad Alliance leader Lovemore Madhuku said yesterday
that the stayaway had not worked for a "number of reasons".

Madhuku risked a 20-year jail term when alliance leaders abandoned anonymity
and urged the country's 11,6-million people to "come onto the streets" for
the protest on Thursday and Friday.

He said the inability of strike organisers to communicate with the public
had been coupled with widespread fear of victimisation.

"We have not achieved paralysis, but that doesn't mean we didn't achieve our
objective.

"It simply means we have a very big task ahead of us," he said on Friday.

The Herald, the government's official mouthpiece, on Saturday only made
passing reference to the strike, describing it as "a flop".

Madhuku said strike organisers in Bulawayo, who toured townships with
bullhorns to urge support, were arrested early on Friday but released later
without charge. There was no recurrence of the violence he reported on
Thursday night in Chitungwiza, south of Harare.

It was the first national strike since the treason trial of opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the veteran trade unionist who leads the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC).

Tsvangirai was acquitted after a three-year-long trial, but now faces
another treason charge over a 2003 mass protest.

More than 200000 people have been left homeless in midwinter cold by a
two-week blitz on "unauthorised housing." In addition, 30000 street traders
were arrested and left without livelihoods by Mugabe's sweep.

The crackdown, which opponents view as an attack on their support base among
the urban poor, has been carried out by armed paramilitary forces.

At a lunch for Zanu (PF) MPs on Friday, Mugabe castigated the MDC for
"sacrificing the interests of the people of Zimbabwe . to serve their
colonial masters", state radio said. With Sapa-AFP
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Financial Mail

      Eskom

      ZIM SETTLES LIGHTS BILL

      By Sven Lünsche

      Zimbabwe has paid off its long-term R100m debt to Eskom, the SA power
utility has confirmed.

      Eskom spokesman Fani Zulu says that the last monthly US$1,5m payment
was made this month, thus settling a debt that has been on Eskom's books
since late 2003. The payments, by Zimbabwe's Electricity Supply Authority
(Zesa), were on top of the normal monthly payments that Zesa made for the
supply of Eskom power to the country.

      Zimbabwe's economic decline resulted in Eskom supplies dropping to 298
gigawatt hours in 2002. This rose to 793 GWh last year, but it is still
below even Swaziland's usage. (See graph.)

      Eskom has had a long relationship with Zesa and tolerated the
accumulation of debt when Zimbabwe hit a currency crisis. Strategically, and
undoubtedly politically, it was important for Eskom to maintain the
relationship.

      Zulu denies there was ever any political pressure to keep supplies to
Zesa going, despite the large debt. "They [Zesa] have always been willing to
enter into negotiations about paying if there were backlogs. We trust their
bona fides, so it was easy to enter into talks about restructuring the
debt," he says.

      The current contract allows Eskom to interrupt power supply to Zesa in
specific circumstances. "This is a standard clause between Eskom and its
customers," Zulu explains.

      Zimbabwe imports 30% of its power, of which about 4% is from Eskom.
The bulk comes from Mozambique's Cahora Bassa and the Inga project in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.

      Two years ago Zimbabwe considered privatisation of its power
generation assets and Eskom was interested in participating. Zulu says Eskom
did not submit a tender for Zesa's Hwange and Kariba power stations. A
Chinese power utility last year agreed to participate in upgrading capacity
at the power stations.
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Oman Observer

Clean-up: flats next in Harare
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe are to begin evicting residents from overcrowded
blocks of flats in the capital Harare as part of a countrywide "clean-up"
campaign that has so far made at least 200,000 people homeless, a newspaper
reported yesterday. Anyone found to be "illegally" residing in council flats
will be evicted, Leslie Gwindi, the spokesman for Harare city council told
the state-controlled Sunday Mail.

Last month, police launched a controversial operation to tear down the
makeshift shacks that housed tens of thousands of families. Many of those
made homeless are believed to have moved in with relatives, worsening
overcrowding in urban areas. "We have noted that there is a lot of chaos
reigning in council flats where people are congested, creating problems such
as bursting of sewer pipes," Gwindi said.

"As a result we will be implementing the operation further to eradicate
situations where greedy people are leasing very small rooms meant for
bachelors or one family to a number of families," he said. President Robert
Mugabe's government says its campaign - the so- called Operation Restore
Order - which has also seen the destruction of thousands of flea markets and
vegetable stalls and the arrest of 22,000 people, is meant to restore
cleanliness and order to Zimbabwe's cities.

But the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it is a
calculated attack on its supporters, most of whom live in urban areas.
Meanwhile the European Union appealed to the government to end the operation
immediately. The EU said the police action was "blatant proof of the
Zimbabwean government's lack of concern for the well-being of the civilian
population, especially in urban areas".
About 400 policemen ringed the seminary near the business district, where
former intelligence   - Reuters
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