U.N. to probe Zimbabwe's evictions of squatter towns

[nickdw]

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations said Monday it was sending a special envoy to Zimbabwe to investigate a government crackdown on squatter settlements that aid workers say has left 200,000 people homeless.

President Robert Mugabe's government says the clean-up campaign, dubbed "Operation Restore Order," is meant to get rid of structures that have sprouted around urban centers in the last few years and are seen as a haven for illegal traders in foreign currency and scarce food items.

But critics say the exercise, which has hit thousands of unregistered traders, has merely piled pressure on Zimbabweans faced with unemployment of over 70 percent and chronic shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli described the crackdown as a "tragedy, crime, horror that the government of Zimbabwe is perpetrating on its people."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8291353/

[tritsofme]

1. Mugabe has done a great job

of turning a fairly modern African country into a first class shit hole.

Mugabe is a more brutal dictator than Saddam tenfold, but I don't see any wars of liberation coming that way, I bet I can make a safe bet that there is no oil in Zimbabwe.