More squatter evictions in Zimbabwe

In violation of a court order barring evictions without proper relocation housing, 300 squatters, who were roughing it in crude encampments in the poor Mbare neighborhood of Harare have been packed into trucks and relocated out of town, according to this report from Cape Town's Independent newspaper.

Also, International Herald Tribune reports that, though the squatters have been scattered, the scorched earth policy followed by Mugabe is still quite evident. The paper cites Killarney, a former squatter neighborhood of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city. What once was an impoverished but vital community of 800 families is now a forlorn patch of dirt. "Before the demolitions," writes reporter Michael Wines, "it was dirt-poor but thriving, subdivided into three villages with stores and services. All that has been razed and burned." This description is telling: "Today, Killarney is a moonscape of sunbaked dirt, scrub and burned-out rubble."