World Report 2011 - Human Rights Watch

INTRODUCTIONthe final stages of the civil war, when the army disregarded the plight of hundredsof thousands of Tamil civilians who were trapped in a deadly war zone.In Zimbabwe, the UN country team never publicly condemned the destructionand displacement caused by Operation Murambatsvina, and almost neverspoke out publicly about the extremely serious human rights abuses committedby Robert Mugabe’s government and the ruling Zimbabwe African NationalUnion- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). In fact, during his four-year tenure inZimbabwe, the UN resident representative rarely met with Zimbabwean humanrights activists, never attended any of their unfair trials, and almost neverspoke publicly about the widespread and severe human rights abuses beingcommitted. Such silence did not translate into better access to the displacedcivilian population–the Zimbabwean authorities and ZANU-PF officials continuedto restrict and manipulate humanitarian operations in Zimbabwe, and frequentlyprevented humanitarian organizations from reaching vulnerable populationssuspected of being pro-opposition. But by failing to publicly condemnthe abuses in Zimbabwe, the UN country team lost key opportunities to use itssubstantial influence as the most important implementer of humanitarian anddevelopment assistance in the country. It also left itself addressing the symptomsof repression rather than their source.By contrast, the special envoy appointed by then Secretary-General Kofi Annanto investigate Operation Murambatsvina issued a strongly worded report in2005 citing the indiscriminate and unjustified evictions and urging that thoseresponsible be brought to justice. The report led to widespread internationalcondemnation of Mugabe’s government–pressure that forced the governmentto allow greater humanitarian access to the displaced population.Similarly in Sri Lanka, in the final months of the war with the Tamil Tigers, UNpersonnel were virtually the only independent observers, giving them a uniquecapacity to alert the world to ongoing war crimes and to generate pressure to17