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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
UN exec reports rising no. of slum evictions
GENEVA - The international community must stop turning a blind eye to a wave of forced evictions of shanty-town dwellers around the world caused by prestige construction projects, a United Nations human rights monitor said last week.
Miloon Kothari, the UN’s watchdog on housing rights, said he was deeply concerned by a rising tide of slum clearance, which was worsening the situation for millions of the poorest people despite being presented as urban improvement.
“We’re seeing an unprecedented wave of evictions across the world,” Kothari told journalists.
Millions
“We’re talking about millions,” he said. “Not because of armed conflict, not because of ethnic conflict, not because of other forms of displacement, but because of so-called development-based projects and plans.”
“It’s a situation that’s grave enough to require global attention. Unfortunately it does not get the kind of attention that armed conflict, ethnic conflict or refugee situations get,” he said.
Kothari, a Indian architect and specialist on land rights who reports to the UN’s top human rights body, has repeatedly spoken out against evictions in a string of countries.
Pattern
He said there is a common pattern of human rights abuse involved: residents are rarely consulted or even informed about plans, there is little or no search for alternatives to demolitions, and police and private security firms use violence and intimidation with impunity.
Kothari raised the alarm a year ago about a campaign in Zimbabwe which saw 700,000 people driven from their slums in what the government billed as a necessary urban clean-up.
Today, many of the victims are still homeless or badly-housed, but the issue has dropped out of the spotlight, Kothari complained.
“The international community, after a flurry of activity last year, seems to have forgotten the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.
Kothari’s recent targets have included: a highway project in the Pakistani megacity of Karachi which could eventually leave 250,000 shanty-town dwellers homeless and a ongoing urban renewal program in Mumbai, India, that has razed the homes of an estimated 350,000 people.
They also included other programs affecting hundreds of thousands of people in Angola, Cambodia and the Philippines.
“We’re seeing the formation of apartheid cities all over the world,” said Kothari, as a result of efforts to drive the poor from what has often turned into prime urban real estate, particularly in countries which are emerging from conflict.
“I think that is a very grave portent for the future because it will certainly lead to more conflict,” he said.
He also cited the effect of dam projects in China and India. (AFP)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 7, 2006 issue)
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