July 22, 2005

via BBC News | UN condemns Zimbabwe slum blitz

BBC NEWS | Africa | UN condemns Zimbabwe slum blitz

A major UN report has called for an immediate end to Zimbabwe's slum clearance programme, declaring it to be in violation of international law.

Hundreds of thousands of homes in the country's shanty towns have been torched and bulldozed in recent months.

But the UN report, to be released in full later on Friday, says the policy is disastrous and inhumane.

As per my post from a couple of weeks ago its probably obvious why news regarding Zimbabwe is set as one of my notifications keywords. I really don't even know what to say. Its so difficult to grasp that there is a mentality among cultures, governments, and government leaders that allow the people of Zimbabwe and other African nations to live in these kinds of conditions in the first place.

And now, suddenly, they are "appalled" by the conditions and decide "lets just bulldoze it all down and start over."

When the only home you have ever known is a shanty can you imagine how awful it must feel to know that even the one thing you could call home is now just a pile of rubble.

I don't understand the nature of the human psyche. There was a time when I thought understood the general concepts involved with the decisions we make and the things we do and why.

I was wrong.