ZIM FLATTENS MORE HOMES AMID PROTESTS

Zimbabwe has resumed destroying homes and flattened the remains of the
country's biggest slum, witnesses said on Tuesday, a day after United
Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said he plans to visit the country to
discuss the controversial demolition campaign.

Zimbabwean anti-riot police beat up people and torched property as they
razed temporary shelters in the Porta Farm slum west of Harare, which had
been the home of about 20 000 residents, witnesses said.

"Police started chasing away and beating up people [on Monday] night, saying
we were refusing to leave," said a former squatter at the Porta Farm slum,
requesting anonymity.

He said police also burnt "wardrobes and other furniture" of residents who
had returned and began to rebuild after Porta Farm had been cleared earlier.

The destruction of Porta Farm marks a resumption of the government's
controversial demolition campaign, which authorities said last week they had
halted to give people time to obtain necessary permits for their homes and
other buildings.

The demolitions came hours after Annan said on Monday that he had accepted
an invitation to visit Zimbabwe to discuss a damning UN report on Harare's
demolition of urban slums that has left hundreds of thousands of people
homeless.

Call to 'organise action'
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Tuesday urged
his countrymen to "organise action" and support the UN in its denunciation
of the controversial urban clean-up campaign.

"The [UN] report presents a challenge to Zimbabweans to organise action and
a public expression of support to the UN," the leader of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) told a news conference in Harare.

"Unless Zimbabweans, with the help of the international community, deal with
the current crisis decisively, we shall remain sucked in the irrationality
of a rogue regime," he said.

Zimbabwean authorities launched in mid-May their double-pronged Operation
Drive Out Trash/Restore Order, razing townships and kiosks that they said
were built illegally.

"The government said we were no longer allowed to stay here and promised to
take us in groups to our rural homes, but they failed to provide the
transport and now accuse us of refusing to go," said George Kashape, another
affected resident in Porta Farm.

Some people were so frustrated they burned their own property after failing
to get transportation, Porta Farm residents said.

"The same government brought us here saying they were going to build us
houses," Kashape said, adding: "They are not saying anything about
allocating us alternative places under the reconstruction programme."

Some of the Porta Farm residents had returned to the slum after the
government closed down last week a temporary camp where people were housed
under plastic sheeting in what humanitarian groups called "appalling and
shocking" conditions.

UN condemns campaign
The UN estimates that at least 700 000 people have lost their homes while
2,4-million others have been affected by the campaign.

In a report issued last week, the UN called for an immediate end to the
demolitions and the prosecution of those responsible.

Although no date has been set for Annan's trip, the UN chief said during a
phone conversation last week with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe that he
"stressed the need for action to be taken to help the people affected, to
stop the clearances and to ensure those affected are not only looked after
but they are given adequate housing".

The Zimbabwean government has condemned the UN report as biased and
exaggerated.

Mugabe -- who has been assiduously courting Asian countries after being
shunned by the West, which has imposed sanctions on the former Commonwealth
nation for allegedly holding rigged elections and trampling on human rights
-- received the support of Chinese leaders during a visit to Beijing on
Tuesday.

SA opposition launches anti-loan campaign
Meanwhile, South African opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has
launched the Stop the Mugabe Loan Campaign, which includes an e-mail war to
persuade South African President Thabo Mbeki not to lend money to Zimbabwe.

Leon launched the campaign at Parliament on Tuesday, noting that his party
has been "inundated with letters, e-mails, phone calls and faxes" from
people expressing their outrage at the fact that South Africa is considering
giving Mugabe nearly R7-billion -- after the International Monetary Fund
called in a $900-million dollar loan.

The DA has drafted a letter to Mbeki that can be found on the party's
website <http://www.da.org.za/DA/Site/Eng/DEFAULT.asp> . It has also pledged
to publish SMSs from the public on its website and then compile them to send
to Mbeki's office.

Leon said his party's position on the loan "is clear. We believe that South
Africa should not extend any loans or credit to the Zimbabwean government.

"Doing so would mean propping up Mugabe and his [ruling] Zanu-PF, rewarding
their corruption and endorsing their systematic human rights abuses,
including Operation Murambatsvina [Drive Out Trash], which the UN views as a
'clear violation of international law'."

Leon said if any aid is to be given, it should come from international
relief organisations, or else be granted in the form of emergency
humanitarian assistance, such as South Africa has given in the past.

"Our government's entire humanitarian assistance budget for this year is
R13-million," he noted.

Mugabe is asking for 500 times that amount. And if any kind of loan is to be
given, Leon said, it should be subject to strict political conditions -- not
just minimal changes in Zimbabwe's monetary policy or currency markets, as
Mbeki has suggested.

Leon noted that the requested amount could build houses for 750 000 South
Africans.

"If the government approves this loan, it will effectively be taking money
away from poor South Africans to fund the eviction of poor Zimbabweans.

"Time and time again, Mugabe has proven his contempt for the African Union,
for human rights, and most of all, for his own people," said Leon. --
Sapa-AFP, I-Net Bridge