NGO faults UN for being 'over-cautious' in Zimbabwe
Agence France-Press
August 21, 2008
Original Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWf6G7MlV7XB_b6IQmGOCfgqh5QQ
GENEVA (AFP) — The United Nations mission in Zimbabwe is over-cautious in its dealings with Harare, contributing to a weak response to the country's internal displacement problem, an NGO said Thursday.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre urged the UN to get tough with President Robert Mugabe's government on the issue, adding that a failure to raise these issues could undermine the UN's credibility.
The UN country team has taken an overly cautious approach in its dealings with the government and has failed to develop a coherent and systematic response to the ongoing displacement crisis in Zimbabwe, it said.
It pointed to a 2004 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs study which found that in places where the displacement problem is ignored, the United Nations needed to have more assertive response.
In Zimbabwe, the centre said, the internal displacement problem remains hidden, as there are no camps for such refugees, no official statistics and no government acknowledgement of a problem.
However, it said several hundred thousand Zimbabweans have been forced from their homes since 2000 by such government initiatives as rural land reform and urban demolition campaigns.
It asked the United Nations to impress upon the government of Zimbabwe its responsibility to protect the rights of Zimbabweans who have become displaced and for UN staff in Zimbabwe to take measures to help the displaced.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, set up in 1998 by the Norwegian Refugee Council, calls itself the leading international body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide.
On behalf of the United Nations, it maintains a database on internal displacement for some 50 countries.