Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015 - Zimbabwe, 29 January 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/54cf836d27.html (excerpts)

The government of President Robert Mugabe continued to violate human rights in 2014 without regard to protections in the country’s new constitution. An expected legislative framework and new or amended laws to improve human rights in line with the constitution never materialized.

Some 20,000 people, displaced by flooding from the Tokwe-Mukorsi dam in Masvingo province in February, were evicted and resettled with little government protection. They have not received adequate compensation, including land for resettlement, and were pressured to relocate to land with disputed titles. When displaced people protested in August, over 200 anti-riot police used excessive force and beat and arrested about 300 people; 29 were charged with public violence. At time of writing, the case was still being heard in court.

Internally Displaced Persons

In February, the government removed an estimated 20,000 people from the flooding of Tokwe-Mukorsi dam in Masvingo province, through a process fraught with human rights problems. Many activists believe that the displacement could have been done in a manner that minimized suffering, as those displaced lost much moveable property for which they had not been compensated at time of writing.

The government failed to respect and protect the basic rights of those displaced under domestic laws and the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, which Zimbabwe has ratified. Instead of receiving fair compensation for the land they lost and allowed freedom of movement, families were given the choice of tiny plots and becoming farmworkers on a sugar cane plantation, or losing the inadequate aid offered by the government. Should they accept the government’s deal, it is unclear whether they could derive a sustainable living from, or steady tenure over, the plots, whose titles appear to be in dispute.

In February 2014, Zimbabwe’s immense Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam basin flooded following heavy rains. Under construction since 1998, the 1.8 million cubic liter dam is intended to provide irrigation and electricity to communities in the semi-arid southern Masvingo province. It is currently slated for completion by the end of 2015.

President Robert Mugabe immediately declared the floods a national disaster and appealed to the international community for US$20 million to help relocate and provide humanitarian assistance to those affected. Shortly after the flooding, the Zimbabwe army and the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) relocated over 20,000 people (around 3,300 families) from the flooded Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam basin to Chingwizi camp on Nuanetsi Ranch in Masvingo’s Mwenezi district. The government shut down the camp in August in an attempt to permanently relocate the families on a different part of Nuanetsi Ranch where each family was allocated a one-hectare plot of land. The families would now have significantly less land than they previously owned when they were in Masvingo.

Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, said the families, in their new Nuanetsi location, would only grow sugar cane for a planned government-owned ethanol project. The reasoning behind families being asked to grow sugar cane was that it would help the project achieve profitability quicker than if families were given option to grow other crops. Bhasikiti said that because the Tokwe-Mukorsi dam is still under construction, it would take about seven years for the ethanol project – a sugar cane irrigation scheme – to be established, during which time, flood victims say, they will have no source of livelihood. Bhasikiti said the families were resettled there to enable them to benefit from the sugar cane irrigation scheme when it eventually becomes operational.

Today, a year after the disaster, these 3,300 families are completely dependent on aid for food and shelter on Nuanetsi Ranch, and are unable to build permanent homes as ownership of the land is in dispute.

This report is based research conducted between March and August 2014 in Chingwizi camp, Masvingo, and in Harare with flood victims, a government minister, local authorities, lawyers, human rights activists, representatives of five nongovernmental organizations that provided services at the camp between February and August when government shut down the camp. In addition, Human Rights Watch interviewed national journalists and representatives of United Nations agencies in Zimbabwe.

The report documents human rights issues related to the dam project, conditions at Chingwizi camp to which the flood victims were initially relocated, abuses related to the resettlement of the flood victims, including the government’s failure to compensate many of them and to grant them the right to have a say in the decision regarding their residence. The report also explores the government’s misuse of humanitarian aid to coerce flood victims to accept official resettlement plans and documents the resettlement of the flood victims on Nuanetsi Ranch where they are unable to build homes or grow crops of their choice as the title of the land is in dispute.

The report found that from the outset, the dam project was fraught with human rights problems, which have multiplied since the floods and the relocation of those in the waters’ path. Before construction, the government did not adequately consult local residents about their needs, or the effect the dam would have on their lives. After the floods, Zimbabwe’s government failed to protect flood victims’ rights, or honor promises regarding compensation and resettlement.

Furthermore, both the Masvingo provincial government and the central government have coerced the displaced to accept the one-hectare sites (instead of the five-hectare sites initially promised) with violence, harassment, and in some cases restricting access to water, food, and other essentials. “Food assistance will only be given to those families who agree to move to their permanent plots, because we need to decongest Chingwizi temporary camp,” Minister for Local Government Ignatious Chombo said in early April.Between May 20 and 23, for example, armed soldiers demolished food storage warehouses at Chingwizi camp and relocated them to the site of the one-hectare plots in Bongo and Nyoni, 20 kilometers away within Nuanetsi Ranch. Other steps taken to coerce flood victims, said Chingwizi camp leaders, include government officials directing groups working at Chingwizi camp to demolish camp toilets, close down the camp school and shut down its only clinic in early August 2014. Minister Bhasikiti said the government decided to shut down Chingwizi camp because resettlement plots were ready for the flood victims to occupy and that the government had initially set up the camp as a temporary emergency measure following the floods.

Minister Bhasikiti told Human Rights Watch that all the families agreed to resettle voluntarily, and were grateful to the government for the opportunity to be part of a commercial sugar cane farming scheme. He maintained that a small group of people effectively held other flood victims hostage at Chingwizi camp and prevented them from accepting government resettlement. However, during visits to Chingwizi camp on three occasions, Human Rights Watch found no evidence that a small group was coercing people not to resettle. The government used armed anti-riot police to forcibly move the flood victims from Chingwizi camp into resettlement on Nuanetsi ranch.

At issue for many flood victims is the lack of government compensation and the new, smaller plots that they said limits their ability to grow enough crops to feed their families. The flood victims contend that until the irrigation scheme becomes fully operational, they will not have a sustainable source of livelihood.

In effect, the flood victims have been internally displaced and the government of Zimbabwe is failing to fulfill its obligation to assist and protect IDPs in the country. In addition, the government is coercing the displaced into resettlement in violation of its domestic and international obligations. These obligations include the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which provide an authoritative restatement of existing international law as it relates to the protection of internally displaced persons, including those affected by natural or human-made disasters.

Under international standards, displaced persons have the right to an adequate standard of living; access to essential food and potable water, basic housing, clothing, and essential medical services and sanitation. Those living in camps have the right to freely seek opportunities for employment and to participate in economic activities; displaced children have the right to education; all humanitarian assistance must be provided without discrimination and should not be diverted for political reasons; and authorities must provide displaced persons with objective, accurate information, and include them in the decision-making process that lead to their voluntary return or resettlement, or to remaining in the place where they sought refuge. In addition, governments should ensure that those evicted have the right to adequate compensation for any property affected; while all feasible alternatives to evictions must be explored in consultation with affected persons, with a view to avoiding, or at least minimizing use of force.

The treatment of those displaced by the Tokwe-Mukorsi dam also contravenes every standard for dealing with internal displacement related to development projects. The UN, the African Union (AU), the World Bank, and many other donors and humanitarian organizations, have stressed that basic human rights must be respected at every stage of displacement and resettlement. UN agencies involved in humanitarian response in Zimbabwe have failed to publicly criticize the government for its failure to provide a long-term solution for IDPs.

Human Rights Watch calls on Zimbabwe’s government, in accordance with its domestic and international obligations, to ensure protection of the rights of Tokwe-Mukorsi flood victims. The government should immediately ensure they received adequate food, shelter, safe drinking water, access to sanitation and other basic aid, and should stop misusing humanitarian assistance and conditioning survival aid—an unconditional right—on resettlement. The government should compensate flood victims and allow them to choose their site of residence, according to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/02/03/homeless-landless-and-destitute/plight-zimbabwes-tokwe-mukorsi-flood-victims#

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