60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

mass violence in zimbabwe 2005 – murambatsvina 231
Trust 2006: 69). The UN then went into appeasement mode, trying
to negotiate the right to bring assistance. No move was taken by any
government to initiate international legal mechanisms to punish or
even censure the Zimbabwean government for gross violations of its
commitments under international law.
Disappointing, as usual, was the response of African governments. Instead
of condemning the massive rights abuses, most kept quiet, while
some even praised Zimbabwe for achieving slum clearance. Sadly,
this approach has come to be expected from the governments of Zimbabwe’s
neighbours, who appear secretly excited by the brazenness
of the Zimbabwean government’s crimes. They abrogate their moral
and legal obligations under international and regional human rights
instruments, possibly because they want to shelter themselves from
censure for their own crimes.
Reports by UN envoys sometimes have a sobering eff ect on the perpetrators
of injustice, but generally are not suffi cient to change behaviour.
Western governments had already imposed targeted sanctions
on the Zimbabwean government and ZANU-PF individuals and had
discontinued most government-to-government aid programmes, so
there were few more actions open to them which might have changed
the situation. They were reduced to pleading to be allowed to provide
aid to the victims. And even here they faltered, in the face of government
insistence that no aid was needed.
The Zimbabwean government
Two responses need to be noted: the government’s attempts to pass off
the mass violence as urban renewal, and its consistent eff orts to prevent
assistance reaching the displaced victims.
Throughout, the government and all its members were defi ant in
their determination to carry on with the destruction in spite of criticism.
In response to the initial outcry, it produced all sorts of excuses,
and then quickly invented a plan to claim that it was building houses
for the displaced people through a programme named Operation Garikayi/Hlalani
Guhle (live well). Ironically, this contradicted directly
the instruction for people to return to their rural homes.
When Mrs Tibaijuka arrived in early July, the government was diligent
in taking her to sites where signs of construction were hastily arranged.
A pretence of building was displayed, with trillions of dollars
being allegedly allocated, but no one was surprised when, more than
a year later, very few houses had been constructed in urban centres