Just last year dictator-in-chief Robert Mugave ordered Operation: Take Out The Trash, bulldozing tens of thousands of makeshift homes that Zimbabwe’s people were forced to live in due to his policies. The operation displaced over 700,000 people, leaving them without a place to live. He promised the international community that reparations would be made and that all of the people driven from their homes would be given new housing.

One year later, this has not happened.

Amnesty International sent a team of researchers into Zimbabwe to get the story. They found that out of all the homes destroyed, only a few thousand have been replaced. And beside that, a good portion is going solely to government loyalists — the police officers and civil servants that carry out his bidding. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the people affected most by the operation are the poorest of society; thus the most opposed to Mugabe.

The mass forced evictions of Operation Murambatsvina constitute a serious violation of human rights, in particular the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Under international law the government of Zimbabwe is obliged to ensure the victims of human rights violations committed during Operation Murambatsvina have access to effective judicial or other appropriate remedies to vindicate those rights, including by providing reparations to the victims of Operation Murambatsvina.(2)

Amnesty International investigated and documented the human rights violations that took place as a consequence of Operation Murambatsvina, and raised the organisation????????s concerns with the government of Zimbabwe, the UN, the African Commission on Human and Peoples???????? Rights (ACHPR) and the African Union.(3) One year after the mass forced evictions Amnesty International returned to Zimbabwe to investigate what, if any, action had been taken by the government of Zimbabwe to restore the human rights of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Operation Murambatsvina. The delegation found the government has failed to ensure adequate reparations to the victims. The victims???????? own efforts to secure effective judicial remedies have been frustrated by the authorities???????? repeated disregard of court orders and obstruction of access to the courts. Despite numerous public statements about a reconstruction programme to address the homelessness created by Operation Murambatsvina, almost none of the victims have received any assistance from the government. On the contrary the government has repeatedly hindered UN efforts to provide emergency shelter and subjected some of the most vulnerable people to repeated forced evictions.

Mugabe’s promise to rebuild the lives he destroyed is constructed on a foundation of lies. It is unthinkable to me that he could believe he’d get away with it. All the big, glitzy press conferences in the world can’t hide the truth in this new age of information. Simply enough, a power-hungry dictator cannot be trusted to do what’s right for his people.