Although to be fair, Amnesty International has reported Zimbabwe: Thousands of forced evictions and arrests in violent crackdown:Robert Mugabe continues his insane demolition of houses and businesses as he increasingly starts to look like Pol Pot reborn, seeking to depopulate the cites and drive the now homeless and unemployed population into the countryside to eke out an even more miserable living, thereby dispersing and isolating people from communities which might oppose his tyrannical rule.
And where are the marchers in the west? Where are the protesters calling for justice in Zimbabwe? Where is the outrage from those tireless tribunes of the Third World, the UN? Why can I not hear the snarls of fury from the alphabet soup of NGOs? What of the legions of Guardian readers finding out about all this? What are they going to call for? Amnesty International is getting a lot of (bad) publicity from having called Guantanamo Bay 'a gulag' whilst now admitting they do not actually know what is happening there, yet why are they not straining every fibre of their being in opposition to this African horror? There is tyranny aplenty to be opposed without having to invent any.
Over the past two weeks the Government of Zimbabwe has orchestrated the forced eviction of thousands of informal traders and families living in informal settlements across the country as part of a crackdown called "Operation Murambatsvina" – widely translated as "drive out the rubbish" but being referred to by police as "operation restore order".("Widely translated as"? What language is the phrase in?)
Evictions are being carried out without notice and without court orders in a flagrant disregard for due process and the rule of law. During the forced evictions police and other members of the security forces are using excessive force -- burning homes, destroying property and beating individuals.
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