From AFP, reprinted on ReliefWeb...
The first phase of a Zimbabwean homebuilding drive following an urban demolition blitz ended Wednesday but thousands are still roughing it out in makeshift shelters or in the open.
The government's much-flaunted Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, or Live Well, is meant to provide a better life to those whose homes or shops were razed in a crackdown on illegal urban structures but its targets are far from being fulfilled.
In Hatcliffe Extension, between 10,000 and 15,000 people live in makeshift shacks crafted out of absestos, plastic sheets and stones on plots where their former homes stood until they were burnt to the ground.
Rumbidzai, a 52-year-old woman, now calls a tiny one-metre asbestos shack home and sleeps under the stars in the winter cold with her ailing husband. The promised better life is nowhere in sight, she said.
"They should have burnt us when they burnt our houses," she said. "How can people do this to their own people?"
Her former home -- like others in the area -- comprised a three-room wooden cabin with a "sofa set, beds, a kitchen unit and wardrobes" all of which were set on fire.
She particularly rues her prized possession -- an old fashioned radio set, which was also torched.
"This is what is left," she said, brandishing one wooden leg of the radio cabinet.
Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo has said that the August 31 target of building 5,000 new homes is on track and that the government will build 150,000 new houses or plots allocated by mid-October.
But on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent saw only seven brick homes under construction in Hatcliffe Extension, a slum located in Harare's posh northern quarter near the upscale suburb of Borrowdale.
Residents in Hatcliffe live in pitiful conditions making do with wells they have dug on their own and pit toilets that are each used by 10 families, comprising five members on average.
Felix Muwani, a security guard, was forcibly moved to Hatcliffe in 1991 when Britain's Queen Elizabeth II visited Harare.
President Robert Mugabe's government, then -- as it has now -- wanted to "beautify" the city -- although this time around it says the controversial demolitions campaign is also aimed at ridding cities of crime and giving people a chance to lead better lives.
"I have been moved from place to place. How can I say I am living well? I have been treated worse than an animal. I can only say I am living well when I see the houses they are building for us."
The reconstruction effort was launched on June 26, when a UN envoy arrived in Zimbabwe to report on the humanitarian crisis sparked by Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive out Filth, that left 700,000 Zimbabweans homeless and destitute when shacks, houses, market stalls and shops were razed.
A young Hatcliffe resident, who gave her name as Madge, said she was worried about the upcoming rains.
"My three-year-old son came from hospital last week after being operated on to separate two webbed fingers and he has fever now because he is cold."
"I don't want to think what will happend when the rains start," she said.
A prevalent sentiment is that even the racist regime of Ian Smith, Zimbabwe's last white prime minister, was better.
"The government introduced indigenisation (after independence in 1980) but now they are destroying it. They have taken our homes and our jobs. The other time was better," an aged woman said, declining to give her name.
The government has also asked private entrepreneurs to take part in Operation Garikai and authorized many of the displaced to start building their own homes.
But the overwhelming majority lack both the means and materials to heed the call.
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