This week, the 20,000 people who fled their homes because of massive flooding at Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukorsi dam in February 2014 sent a desperate plea to President Robert Mugabe. “Your government has forgotten us. We have no freedom. We feel like people in prison. Your government is treating us like second class citizens and as if we are people with no rights at all,” reads the public letter. “We do not have enough food and we are facing starvation.”
After a year of government indifference and a litany of broken promises, the government has turned its back on these people. In the last six months, the government has distributed food only twice, with each family receiving 25 kilograms of maize meal – not nearly enough for their needs. They lack adequate shelter, safe drinking water, and access to sanitation and health services.
Additionally, Mugabe’s government has coerced the flood victims to resettle onto one-hectare plots at a farm with close links to his ruling Zanu-PF party. Conditions at the ranch can be summed up in one word: miserable. The plots are unsuitable for growing enough food to feed their families, the land is earmarked for growing sugar cane, and the land ownership is disputed.
Although the flood victims would have been required to move eventually –once the Tokwe-Mukorsi dam’s construction was complete – they were holding out until fair compensation was given.
The flood changed all that, possibly deliberately. According to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, the flooding “was not natural, but [a] man-made disaster” and could have been avoided if the overflow channels built into the dam wall had been opened. Since the flood, the long-promised compensation payments to help the flood victims rebuild their lives has not been forthcoming and humanitarian aid intended for them has been misappropriated.
Mugabe should ensure there is an immediate and transparent process to provide basic services to the flood victims, and that they are adequately compensated and fully consulted about their future resettlement. His government’s long history of violating human rights does not bode well for the victims. However, Mugabe is once again receiving aid from Western donors, including the European Union, and he needs to demonstrate he is willing to tackle human rights concerns. Maybe, this time, he will change his ways.
Meanwhile the flood victims wait, their situation more precarious by the day.
