UN SLAMS ZIM GOVERNMENT

Nick Wadhams

United Nations - Zimbabwe's destruction of urban slums is a "disastrous venture" that has left 700 000 people without homes or jobs, violated international law and created a grave humanitarian crisis, according to excerpts of a harshly worded UN report.

The report, to be released on Friday morning, detailed the devastating extent of Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, for the first time. It said a further 2.4 million people have been affected by the countrywide campaign that began with little warning on May 19 and has seen thousands of shantytowns, ramshackle markets and makeshift homes demolished.

"While purporting to target illegal dwellings and structures and to clamp down on alleged illicit activities, (the operation) was carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering," said the report's executive summary, obtained late on Thursday by The Associated Press.

The report, using language unusually harsh for the United Nations, called for the government to stop the destruction immediately. It said the operation clearly violated international law.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had dispatched special envoy Anna Tibaijuka to Zimbabwe to study the effects of the campaign and report back her findings. She delivered the document to Annan earlier this week.

Tibaijuka suggested that an independent probe could help decide if there was criminal negligence leading to any deaths.

President Robert Mugabe's government has defended the operation as an urban clean-up drive, and has promised to help the displaced rebuild. Zimbabwe's opposition says it is aimed at breaking up its strongholds among the urban poor and forcing them into rural areas where they can be more easily controlled by chiefs sympathetic to the government.

But the report said that even if the operation is a clean-up drive, the campaign - which some have called Operation Restore Order - has been a "crash" operation that will take years for Zimbabwe to recover from.

"Even if motivated by a desire to ensure a semblance of order in the chaotic manifestations of rapid urbanisation and rising poverty characteristic of African cities, nonetheless Operation Restore Order turned out to be a disastrous venture," the report said.

Zimbabwe has pledged $325m to provide 1.2 million houses or building plots by 2008 but the report said economists have expressed doubt that the government can afford such a project at a time when Zimbabwe is wracked by triple-digit inflation and in the throes of a severe food crisis.

"The humanitarian consequences of Operation Restore Order are enormous," she said.

Tibaijuka said Zimbabwe needs shelter, food, health services, and other essential goods.

Tibaijuka is the Tanzanian head of Nairobi-based UN Habitat, which deals with the plight of cities.