COHRE Forced Evictions Global Survey No.7 1998

FORCED EVICTIONS Violations of Human Rights

COHRE September 1998

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FORCED EVICTIONS Violations of Human Rights

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

Š COHRE September 1998 COHRE 83 Rue de Montbrillant 1202 Geneva, Switzerland www.cohre.org

Graphic design: Suggestie & illusie, Utrecht, The Netherlands Printers: Primavera, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Cover photo: Eviction in Dhaka, Bangladesh Š Rashid Talukder

Table of Contents

Preface

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1. Introduction

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2. Forced Evictions 1994 - 1997

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Bangladesh Bhutan Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Burma Cambodia China Colombia Croatia India Indonesia Iran Israel and the Occupied Territories Japan Kenya Lesotho

14 16 17 18 20 26 28 30 30 32 37 38 38 44 45 48

3. General Comment No. 7 on Forced Evictions (1997)

Malaysia Nepal Nigeria Pakistan Papua New Guinea Philippines Poland St. Vincent and the Grenadines South Africa South Korea Sudan Thailand Turkey United States Zimbabwe

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49 50 51 53 55 55 59 59 60 62 63 64 65 69 71

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4. Comprehensive Human Rights Guidelines on Development-Based Displacement (1997) 79

Publications available from COHRE

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Preface

The past two years at the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) have seen a lot of what we feel to be quite positive changes for the organization. Since the last global survey on forced evictions was issued, COHRE moved its central office from Utrecht, the Netherlands to Geneva, Switzerland. In early 1998 Scott Leckie was appointed Director, and COHRE relocated to a new office just on the other side of the entrance to the UN, to ensure that COHRE continues to keep a close watch on all that goes on there and to provide easy access to the UN for the many groups with which COHRE closely collaborates.

COHRE has engaged a new consultant, Leilani Farha, who in turn initiated COHRE’s Women and Housing Rights Programme (WHRP). COHRE is now in the process of establishing a COHRE Americas Programme (CAP) which will be coordinated by Grahame Russell and work on housing and eviction issues in South and Central America and the Caribbean. An Africa Programme to be based in Lagos, Nigeria at the offices of the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) will do the same work throughout the African continent. In Asia, COHRE plans to expand and augment our relations with the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights and their Eviction Watch Programme.

Each of these new programmes and processes are designed to increase COHRE’s activities in the areas of women’s rights, the Americas, Africa and Asia and to expand the reach and effectiveness of our work towards reducing the prevalence, scale and inhumanity associated with forced evictions. This expansion in COHRE’s programmes will bring increased challenges which we are confident we can confront and which will hopefully result in greater respect being given the right to adequate housing.

Despite all of these changes some things have remained the same at COHRE, such as our continued commitment to promote and protect the right to housing and the right to be free from the practice of forced eviction for everyone, everywhere. In keeping with this mandate, among a host of other activities, we continue to monitor forced evictions, collect and disseminate information on forced evictions, lobby the United Nations to adopt improved international human rights standards on forced eviction, and assist in local struggles against forced evictions in every region of the world. And so, because millions of people continue to be forcibly evicted from their homes each year and because nearly 14 million people are currently threatened with forced eviction, COHRE has published this seventh Global Survey on Forced Evictions.

Global Survey No. 7 is very much a collective and collaborative effort involving many people, organizations, movements and groups throughout the world. We are particularly grateful to the more than 100 people and groups who provided COHRE with information on past and pending evictions in the places where they work and reside. A report such as this one would simply not be possible without the detailed information, most of it first-hand, provided directly to COHRE by the global COHRE network. COHRE would like to thank all those who worked to provide the information and data forming the basis of this report.

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The first draft of Survey No. 7 was prepared by Rob Stewart in the Netherlands, while the second draft was coordinated and written by Leilani Farha. The final publication was overseen and edited by the COHRE Director, Scott Leckie. Though we are dismayed at the continued need for a publication such as this one, we hope that it contributes, in a meaningful way, to the global struggle against the practice of forced evictions in which many of our friends and colleagues are engaged. We welcome your comments and feedback on this Survey as well as any information about forced evictions in your region at any time; and, if you know of an organization or individual who may benefit from this Survey, we encourage you to pass it along or to put them in touch with COHRE. Geneva, September 1998

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1 Introduction

Despite many developments in recent years which have significantly strengthened legal protection against forced eviction under international human rights law which continue to confirm that forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights and the many ongoing efforts by Mexican Eviction Victim Š Casa y Ciudad, Mexico human rights organizations to eliminate the practice, forced evictions continue to occur on a large scale in virtually all countries. This Global Survey marks the seventh and most extensive compilation on forced evictions published by COHRE since 1990 and addresses forced evictions that COHRE has monitored between June 1994 and the end of 1997. This document focuses only on those incidents where persons, families and communities were involuntarily removed from their homes or land or are currently threatened with such action; practices for which State responsibility has been established under international law.

Though the practice of forced eviction shares many characteristics with related phenomenon such as internal displacement, population transfer, mass exodus, refugee movements and ethnic cleansing, under international law forced eviction is regarded as a distinct practice generating particular legal obligations on behalf of States and particular rights for people threatened by this practice. This is evidenced by the new international standards specifically addressing forced evictions adopted by a range of human rights bodies in recent years, and the manner by which forced evictions are addressed within all national legal jurisdictions.

While there are many conceptual areas of convergence between the various manifestations of displacement, several key factors seem to distinguish forced evictions from related phenomena involving the coerced removal or flight of persons from their homes. These can be divided into eight key distinctions: 1. Forced evictions always raise issues of human rights (other forms of displacement might not invariably involve human rights concerns); 2. Forced evictions are generally planned, foreseen or publicly announced (other types of coerced movement may occur spontaneously and not necessarily be part of a State policy or legal regime); 3. Forced evictions involve the conscious use of physical force (other kinds of displacement do not always involve physical force); 4. Forced evictions raise issues of State responsibility (determining liability for a forced eviction will often be much easier than doing the same for other manifestations of displacement);

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5. Forced evictions affect both individuals and groups (most other forms of displacement are only mass in character); 6. Forced evictions are generally regulated or legitimized by law (other types of displacement may be more random or simply not addressed legally); 7. Forced evictions are always sought to be justified (rarely are evictions carried out which do not involve a rationalization of the process by those sponsoring the evictions in question); and 8. Forced evictions can sometimes be consistent with human rights (most other forms of displacement cannot be justified on human rights grounds, whereas evictions may be justified for reasons of public order, the safety and security of the dwellers and threats to public health).

The forced evictions covered in this Survey occur largely as a result of development projects, urban redevelopment schemes, gentrification, urban beautification, land alienation in both rural and urban areas and in situations of armed conflict and ethnic cleansing. Examining the practice from a human rights perspective reveals that the reasons and justifications commonly provided by governments for implementing forced evictions and the manner in which evictions are carried out, rarely meet the international standards required by human rights law and that correspond to basic measurements of human dignity.

This document examines cases involving the eviction of over 3 million persons in 31 countries who were forcibly evicted from their homes in 1994 - 1997, and which resulted in the deaths of 660 persons as a result of the eviction process. This compilation, of course, captures only a representative cross-section of a much wider practice which affects, to one degree or another, all countries. Indeed, exceptionally few nations -- including strong human rights supporters where the rule of law prevails -- have succeeded in protecting all categories of people from unlawful, illegal, unjust or plainly unfair forced evictions. This report seeks to record instances of forced eviction on the basis of information COHRE has received directly from affected persons and groups and where the cases at hand are particularly noteworthy. As such, this study does not purport to be comprehensive in terms of representing the universal scale of the practice of forced evictions. Rather, it seeks to play the role of an indicator of the manner by which this single practice -- replicated across the globe -- can result in millions of persons suffering what in most cases are entirely unnecessary and avoidable violations of basic human rights. It must be emphasized that the absence of a particular country in this survey should not be viewed necessarily as evidence that the eviction situation in that country is tolerable or consistent with international law. In some cases the exclusion of a given country may be due to a reasonable eviction policy, but in other instances countries which may not have found mention here can sometimes provide dreadful examples of large-scale forced evictions contrary to human rights law.

Though the sheer numbers of forced evictions paint an ugly picture, it is the human cost associated with forced eviction that best measures the toll that this practice takes. As this Survey shows, evicted people not only lose their homes and neighbourhoods, in which they have often invested a considerable proportion of their incomes over the years, but they are also often forced to leave behind personal possessions, since often little warning is given before bulldozers or demolition squads destroy their settlements.

Evictees often lose those relationships which provide a safety net or survival network of protection against ill health, income decline or the loss of a job, and which allow many tasks to be shared. Sources of livelihood are frequently lost as evictees are forced to move away from the area where they had a job or a source of income. In those few cases where resettlement is offered, more often than not, it is inadequate and poorly situated.

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Problematically, compensation -- whether manifested in the form of rehousing, resettlement or financially -- is rarely provided to evictees. Yet if forced evictions are, as international human rights law rightly concludes, a violation of human rights, then surely those facing this practice are entitled by these same laws, to just and satisfactory compensation for the wrongful act carried out against them. The issue of compensation for forced evictions is an area where COHRE plans to devote expanded attention in the future, for if States were compelled to provide evictees with compensation equivalent to the value of the property, land, housing and possessions lost a result of a forced eviction, governments around the world would be required to spend literally billions of dollars to offset the human rights violations they actively committed or passively allowed to occur. The international community must hold evicting States accountable not only for the initial rights violation, but also to the duty to prevent homelessness and to compensate justly and satisfactorily any and all persons illegitimately evicted from their homes and lands.

COHRE is particularly concerned with the various forms of violence - physical, psychological, structural associated with forced eviction. Having monitored the practice of forced evictions in many regions in the world over the past several years, COHRE has come to realize that in many respects the process of forced eviction (in its various manifestations), as well as its impact on everyday lives, not only often takes place within the context of, but actually parallels what occurs during and after war and armed conflict situations.

For example, to implement a forced eviction, it is now common practice for governments to employ armed police officers, SWAT teams, criminal gangs and hired thugs, and bulldozers to ensure a complete and successful eviction. COHRE continues to receive regular reports of the use of severe violence during forced eviction including, killings, beatings, rapes and tortures. COHRE firmly opposes such violence and believes that these injustices must be exposed and that those persons or institutions carrying out forced evictions that violate human rights should be held criminally liable and prosecuted accordingly.

The past few years have been witness the emergence of some particularly complex manifestations of forced eviction. For example, displaced persons who fled their homes during the war in Bosnia are now seeking to return to their homeland and their homes. Upon their return, however, returnees have frequently found their houses occupied by refugees or internally displaced persons from other ethnic groups, who themselves cannot return to their original homes because they face the same predicament. Given the fact that nearly two million Bosnian remain unable to return to their original homes despite an explicit right to do so under Annex 7 of the Dayton Accords which ended the war, and that this phenomenon is by all means not isolated to Bosnia, COHRE believes that the world needs to examine the broader theme of housing and property restitution in the context of post-conflict reconstruction and development much more thoroughly than it has to date, for this situation also raises clear issues of forced eviction and demands appropriate and meaningful responses. It is hoped that the recent adoption of a resolution by the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities entitled “Housing and property restitution in the context of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons� will be taken seriously by all States preventing the fair and just return of refugees and IDPs to their original homes.

Privatization and liberalization have become dominant economic paradigms throughout the globalizing world. It is commonly forgotten that these processes which have generated so much wealth for the already well-off groups in society, also means that low-income people are facing significant reductions in the availability of low cost or social housing and the erosion of social assistance entitlements. As a result, large numbers of poor people are being evicted for non-payment of rent and falling into homelessness.

Are evictions which can be directly traced to government cut-backs and neo-liberal/conservative policies

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legal or illegal forced evictions under international law? Though this Global Survey does not necessarily provide answers to the questions that these and other cases raise, we believe that documenting these tough cases will contribute to an understanding of the complexities and nuances raised by the practice of forced eviction, particularly in these economically volatile times.

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The practice of forced eviction has continued to receive considerable attention at the United Nations over the past three years, much of which came about due to initiatives first instigated by COHRE. In 1996, the Habitat Agenda and Global Plan of Action emerged from the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements and explicitly commits governments to the objective of “protecting all people from and providing legal protection and redress for forced evictions that are contrary to the law, taking human rights into consideration”. In many respects far more significant and intensively more protective, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted in May 1997 General Comment No. 7, The right to adequate housing: forced evictions, the leading and most detailed international pronouncement on forced evictions to date. General Comment No. 7 is reproduced in section 3 below.

Also in 1997, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights hosted an Expert Group Meeting on forced evictions which resulted in the adoption of the innovative Comprehensive Human Rights Guidelines on Development-Based Displacement, and which will be before the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1999. COHRE urges interested persons and groups to closely examine these Guidelines and to encourage their respective governments to support and apply them in full. This and many other recent international decisions and documents pertaining to forced eviction appear in COHRE’s Sources No. 3: Forced Eviction Resource Manual (revised 2nd edition, 1998), which is also available from COHRE.

PLANNED EVICTIONS This survey outlines and examines only those forced evictions which have already taken place and which are based as much as possible on first-hand information. In considering this information it is imperative to recall that as of September 1998, COHRE is aware that millions of persons are currently threatened with possible or pending eviction in more than three dozen countries as a result of large-scale development projects, urban renovation, renewal and city beautification projects and the simple absence of security of tenure and legal protection against eviction and other measures favoured or tolerated by governments.

During the five year period of 1990-1994, COHRE learned of planned evictions (many of which were eventually carried out) set to affect some 5.5 million persons; an average of just over one million per year.

Currently, however, and indicative of a distressing and looming trend, COHRE estimates today there are over 14 million persons threatened by forced eviction under existing plans and projects.

The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights has said that up to 70% of the 1.5 million slum dwellers in Bangkok are threatened with eviction.1 Whereas throughout Asia, the ACHR claims that a potential 2.2 million people may be evicted under current eviction plans in China, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and Thai-

1 ACHR (1998) Forced Evictions and Housing Right Abuses in Asia, Second Report 1996-1997 (K. Fernandes, ed.), City Press, Karachi, p. 146.

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land. The Urban Poor Associates estimates that at least 13,658 families (or 81,948 people) currently face eviction in the Philippines. China’s heavily criticized Three Gorges Dam project has now been predicted to displace at least 1.9 million people, considerably higher than the original estimates of 1.2 million. Four other dam projects in China, threaten to displace tens of thousands of people: the 2-dam Inland Waterways project (13,088 people); the Ertan II Dam (8,000 people), the Jiangya, Yangtze Basin Water Res., project (13,500 people) and the Longtan Dam (73,392 people). In Laos, the Nam Theun 2 hydropower project, which is supported by the World Bank, is set to evict some 5,000 persons, according to reports from the International Rivers Network (IRN).2 The IRN also recently reported that the Bakun Dam in Malaysia, despite the indefinite postponement of the project, continues to threaten more than 10,000 people living in the resovoir zone, whose futures remain uncertain. In India, in the Chotanagpur region of Bihar State, a series of hydro-electric and other energy projects currently threaten to displace several hundred thousand individuals, families and communities, most of whom come from tribal and indigenous groups. The proposed construction of dams as part of the Koel Karo Hydro-electricity Project in Ranchi and Gumla districts may yet displace 65,000 persons, 90% of whom are tribals. The project had been abandoned following agitation, but the government has since discussed the possibility of reviving it. Construction of the Subarnarekha dams in Singhbhum district will displace 65,000 people, 60% of them tribals. In the North Karanpura valley of Palamau district, 24 coal mines will displace 100,000 persons. In the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP), construction of a large dam across the Godavari river at Polavaram threatens to displace 230,000 persons, two-thirds of them tribals.

The Government of Maharashtra has resolved to implement a massive eviction drive that will likely affect approximately 75,000 people. YUVA, an NGO in Mumbai, has determined that the following communities are now threatened with forced eviction in 1998: Prakash Nagar in Mahim (750 people); Jai Bhim Nagar in Mahim (more than 2,000 people); Amboj Wadi (20.000 persons); Shanti Nagar (more 7,000 people); Subash Nagar in Wadala (300 people) reside; Rajiv Nagar in King Circle (200 people); Rahul Nagar in Chunna Bhatti (2,000 people) reside and Baradevi in Sewri (375 people). YUVA claims that up to 150,000 additional people in Gaodevi, Vakola colony are under the constant threat of house demolition and eviction because of the settlement’s proximity to the airport.

In Africa, Nigeria stands out as an example of a country with a bad eviction record, and appears intent on making it even worse. On July 15, 1996, just a few weeks after the Habitat II Conference, the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Physical Planning announced the government’s plan to demolish fifteen slum communities in Lagos as part of a clean-up project assisted by the World Bank. The World Bank and the Lagos Urban Renewal Board are co-sponsoring the Lagos Drainage and Sanitation Project (LDSP) on the basis that the targeted slums constitute “an environmental nuisance” and lack basic economic and social infrastructure such as roads, water supply and electricity all of which the government argues would be too expensive to supply to the area. COHRE’s close partner organization, SERAC, recently filed a complaint about this pending eviction before a World Bank Inspection Panel. Slums targeted for eviction include: Badiya, Ijora, Ayetoro, Ebute Metta, Makoko, Obalende, Iponri, Oko Baba, Ilubirin, Sari Iganmu and Amukoko. These communities are old, well entrenched districts of Lagos that pre-date independent Nigeria (1914).3 The majority of the residents possess valid legal titles to the lands on which they live and they have consistently paid taxes to appropriate local governments as well as to the Lagos State Government. If the planned evictions occur as announced, a staggering 1.2 million people face a grave risk of losing their homes and suffering other injuries.

2 International River Network (Dec. 1997) World Rivers Review (vol. 12, no. 6), 3.

3 Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (1997) Expendable People: An Exploratory Report on Planned Forced Evictions in Lagos, SERAC.

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Planned evictions are by no means a phenomenon exclusively affecting the developing world. For instance, in Europe, FEANTSA estimated in mid-1998 that in European Union countries 1.6 million people are under eviction procedures and that more than 400,000 people are evicted each year.4 COHRE has also received information about pending or planned evictions in a range of other countries, including Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Israel/Palestine, Kenya, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Zimbabwe. It is hoped that Governments in these and other nations where large numbers of people live in fear of eviction will at last embrace the housing rights and other human rights provisions established under international and national law and protect people from eviction, rather than lining them up before the bulldozer.

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In the descriptions of forced evictions outlined in Section 2 information is provided on the context within which the eviction took place, where possible. Immediately following the descriptions of the evictions in each country, information is provided on the State’s legal recognition of the right to adequate housing under international and national legislation. Under each State we have noted: 1. Whether the country in question has ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the most important international legal treaty containing housing rights adopted by the United Nations in 1966 and which came into force in 1976. Article 11(1) of the Covenant guarantees the right to adequate housing using the following terminology: The States parties to present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

If the country has ratified the CESCR and is thus legally bound to comply with Article 11(1) and the remaining provisions of the Covenant, this is indicated by CESCR: Yes (Date of Ratification). If the country has not ratified the CESCR, this is indicated by CESCR: No. 2. Whether the country in question has recognized the right to adequate housing in their national Constitution. If the country has included housing rights provisions within the national Constitution this is indicated with: Const: Yes (Article of the Constitution); if not, this is indicated with: Const: No. This document will be made available to governments, United Nations agencies and human rights bodies, as well as to the many community-based and non-governmental organizations involved in the international movement against forced evictions. It is COHRE’s sincere belief, based on many years of experience trying to prevent forced evictions, that documenting and exposing the widespread and often unjustifiable

4 FEANTSA (1998) Youth Homelessness in the European Union, (D. Avramov, ed.), Brussels, 26.

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practice of forced eviction to the international community can assist in ensuring that the practice of forced eviction is confronted from a human rights perspective and that planned evictions can actually be prevented.

The position of international human rights law on forced evictions is increasingly clear. Thinly veiled arguments by governments in defence of the practice are almost invariably unacceptable; in most cases forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights. COHRE is also convinced that by exposing concrete cases of forced eviction that pressure can be brought to bear on States which are planning to undertake these measures and may serve to persuade them to reconsider. With this type of information available, governments truly committed to protecting human rights have a chance to take measures to prevent and halt further violations before they are permitted to occur.

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2 Forced Evictions 1994 - 1997

BANGLADESH Throughout Bangladesh, large sections of the urban population, the homeless, landless and poor are forced to build their homes on pavements and in slums. Afforded no security of tenure and no legal protection, they live a precarious existence and are frequently subjected to forced eviction. Families and entire communities are driven out of their homes by bulldozers and riot police. Often they are evicted in the name of “development”, to make space available for private market, middle or high Eviction in Dhaka. © Rashid Talukder income housing or government buildings.1 More than 22 million or one-fifth of all Bangladeshis live in urban centres. According to the World Bank by the year 2001 the urban population will consist of just over 39 million people as a result of regular urban population growth and rural-urban migration. At present, approximately half of these urban dwellers can be classified as poor and most of the urban poor live in slums and squatter settlements located on vacant lands that have been targeted by the private sector and government as “development lands”.

This means that many low income urban settlements in Bangladesh face the threat of forced eviction.2 The Centre for Urban Studies (CUS) at Dhaka University reports that there are more than 1,248 slums in Dhaka accommodating an estimated 2,000,000 people or 55% of the city’s population. Slum dwellers have no legal status or identity, regardless of their length of stay on the site, they are considered illegal encroachers on government or private land and hence are extremely vulnerable to eviction.3 The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights has determined that the most common reasons for forced eviction in Bangladesh are as follows: • Public works, utilities, roads, etc.

• Development activities carried out by the government • Real estate development4 Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), a legal aid organization in Dhaka, reports that most evictions occur without the provision of prior notice to evictees, though de facto notice is often provided when the authorities remove electricity, water and gas supplies from a slum. When actual notice is provided it is minimal, allowing slum residents from a week to a few hours to move all of their belongings while announcements of the pending eviction or demolition are made over loudspeakers from rickshaws which circle the

1 2 3 4

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Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) (1997) Forced Eviction in Bangladesh: Study on Urban Slum Eviction.

Ibid.

As cited in: Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) (1997) Eviction Watch Asia: Draft Report on Forced Evictions and Housing Rights Abuses in Asia at 4.

Ibid.

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slum. During most evictions bulldozers and riot police are deployed, slum residents are forcibly evicted from their homes and subjected to physical violence whilst their personal belongings are demolished alongside their homes. In some cases houses are burnt down. The violence associated with these forced evictions includes threats, harassment and on occasion severe injuries and death.5 • In Dhaka in early 1994 approximately 1,500 families (7,500 people), including many single women and minor children, who had built structures and dwellings on land in the area known as Kollyanpur Pora Bost in Mirpur, were evicted from their homes despite having lived on the land for more than 7 years. The community received no notice of the eviction. A bulldozer, accompanied by four truckloads of police officers and a Magistrate carried out the eviction. In the face of protests by the residents of the bosti (slum), the police withdrew only to return a few hours later with approximately 200 police officers. Within an hour the bulldozer had demolished about 200 homes and officials announced that all residents of the bosti must evacuate within two days or they would be forcibly removed from the land.

The existence of the slum was well-known and had been implicitly sanctioned by the government as many of the women residents who were evicted were part of a Women’s Credit Scheme (which provided micro loans to very poor women) approved by the NGO Bureau, a government ministry.6 • ASK reported that on 27 November 1994 approximately 20 people were injured when police evicted Lalkhan Bazar bosti in Chittagong. Within a few hours approximately 1,000 people were rendered homeless. The dwellers were given no prior notice, compensation nor resettlement.7 • From January until March 1996 the country was going through a political upheaval, preceding and just after the February 1996 election. During this time there was considerable political strife and violence in Dhaka that ultimately intersected directly with slum dwellers’ and squatters’ housing rights and the right to be free from forced eviction. This was particularly so for the residents of Bijli Mohalla squatter settlement, Bagunbari bosti, and Isambagh slum which the ruling party had burned down because dwellers in these communities had backed the opposition. The razing of these slums rendered 21,580 people (or 2,930 families) homeless and resulted in 80 wounded and 5 deaths. Needless to say, no eviction notices, alternative sites or compensation were provided to the evictees.

• Between January and March 1996 Amtoli and Lalbagh squatter settlements were also evicted rendering 720 families (4,000 people) homeless.8 • On 19 January 1997 a group of people allegedly ransacked approximately 100 thatched houses in a slum at Segun Bhagicha under Ramana Thana in Dhaka City. Witnesses said that approximately 50 people started to dismantle the houses made of bamboo, wood and corrugated iron sheets. The dwellers were not served with any notice prior to the eviction. The following day, the dismantled thatched houses were burned. This eviction rendered more than 2,000 people homeless.9 • ASK reports that on 17 February 1997 Bhasantek basti, one of the biggest slums in Dhaka was forcibly evicted. Approximately 2,500 families (20,000 people) were affected. The eviction was carried out from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. on the orders of the Ministry of Housing but contrary to the Prime Minister’s written direction that the eviction should not take place without provisions for proper reset-

5 6 7 8 9

ASK, supra note 1.

Ibid.

Ibid.

ACHR, supra note 3 at 7.

ASK, supra note 1.

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tlement of all evictees. Several hundred police and labourers hired by the government implemented the eviction. During the eviction an 8 year old boy was seriously injured and was sent to hospital and women who opposed the eviction were threatened with arrest. Eventually an element of justice was imposed as the Housing Minister was fired for evicting the dwellers without notice. The Prime Minister subsequently assured the former residents of Bhasantek that they would receive proper compensation, rehabilitation and other assistance.10 CESCR: No Const: Yes (art. 15)

BHUTAN In an unprecedented and continuing campaign in southern Bhutan over 100,000 mainly Nepali-speaking Hindus have fled or been forcibly exiled from the southern districts of Samchi, Chirang, Dagana, Samdrupjonkhar, Sarbhang and Chhuka. The nominally Buddhist Drukpa absolute monarchy and its government, branded these southerners “non-nationals”, “anti-nationals” and “illegal immigrants” and forced them to sign “voluntary” migration forms. One sixth of Bhutan’s population now lives in involuntary exile.

The refugees - 65% of whom were women and children - first went to the neighbouring Indian states of Assam and West Bengal. The Indian government, however, failed to provide even the most basic humanitarian relief, so at least 85,000 of the exiled Bhutanese then sought shelter in eastern Nepal where they were eventually housed in eight refugee camps administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). According to some accounts, over 2,000 of the refugees were tortured and hundreds of women were raped whilst still in Bhutan.11 • The demolition of a house in the village of Biroo, Sibsoo sub-division, Samchi district, in southern Bhutan, on 14 December 1994, left a family of 15 (6 adults and 9 children) homeless. The demolition was alleged to have been sponsored by the Royal Government of Bhutan. The victims, who resided in a tent after the eviction, subsequently faced expulsion from the country on the pretext that they were antinationals or had previously applied for voluntary migration. In September 1990, after taking part in a mass rally in nearby Sibsoo, the head of the family, a third-generation member of the Nepali-speaking community, had fled the country to neighbouring West Bengal, India, where he joined his eldest son in exile. From then on, the remaining family members were systematically persecuted by officials, who coerced local villagers to assist with the demolition. Many similar cases have been reported in southern Bhutan since 1990, the families invariably having been expelled shortly thereafter.12 • On 8 and 15 July 1995 the weekly newspaper ‘Kuensel’ - the official mouthpiece of the Royal Government - ran advertisements on behalf of the Unit Trust of Bhutan and the Royal Insurance Corporation of Bhutan which invited bidders to an auction of houses, fruit orchards, land and other property, predominantly in the districts of Chirang, Dagana and Sarbhang. Investigation of the properties put to auction established that, in at least three cases, they belonged to refugee families in Nepal.13 CESCR: No Const: No 10 11 12 13

16

Ibid.

People’s Forum for Human Rights - Bhutan (PFHRB) (April 1995).

Association of Human Rights Activists (AHURA) Bhutan (20 December 1994).

AHURA Bhutan (26 July 1995).

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA Persons living in areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina dominated by another ethnic or national group continue to face the threat of harassment, assault and forced eviction because of their nationality or ethnic origin. Moreover, approximately 1.8 million persons have been denied the right to return to the homes they were evicted and/or ‘ethnically cleansed’ from during the conflict, despite irrefutable rights to do so under the Dayton Accords which explicitly guarantee in Annex 7 the right to freely return to their homes of origin, the right to have property restored which was deprived during hostilities and the right to compensation for any property which cannot be restored to them. A Commission on Real Property Claims (CPRC) was also created under Dayton to facilitate the implementation of the provisions linked to the right to return. By the end of 1997 it had received over 50,000 claims from potential returnees and issues roughly 1,000 legally-binding decisions each month. Several selective examples of the types of issues confounding the search for reconstruction and reconciliation follow: • In the Republika Srpska police blocked the return of approximately 100 Bosniaks to their home town of Mahala, near Zvornik, on 29 August 1996. When the returnees approached the vicinity, the police warned them not to proceed and fired tear gas canisters. Some 10 Bosniaks were injured. A second attempt to return two days later similarly failed.

• On 20 September 1996 a group of more than 100 Bosniaks, some of them armed, entered the village of Jusici, near Zvornik, for the declared purpose of repairing and reoccupying their homes. The village, which had been almost completely destroyed during the war, is located in the ZOS where weapons are banned by the terms of the Dayton Agreement. Republika Srpska authorities, stating that they viewed the incident as part of an attempt to effectively cut the Serb entity in half, demanded that the Bosniaks withdraw.

• The UNHCR reported that in west Mostar, evictions of some 50 Bosniac families continued during 1996 and 40 families who attempted to return to west Mostar from east Mostar were asked to return as a pre-condition to the continuation of negotiations. In some municipalities, Croats have continued to relocate to Bosniac houses, preventing the possibility of return by the minority group.14 • The Associated Press reported in February 1997 that the Croats in Mostar - a divided town - evicted some 100 Muslims from their homes, just hours after firing on 200 Muslims visiting a cemetery, killing one and wounding many others.15 • On 19 - 20 October 1997 a Bosnian Croat house in Dizdarusa and a Bosnian house in Stari Rasadnik were bombed to prevent the Bosnian owners from returning to their homes.16 • On 4 November 1997 a Bosniak man reported to the UN that during the night of 2-3 November 1997, five Bosniak houses under reconstruction in the village of Dizdarusa (in the Zone of Separation) were damaged and that building material had been stolen. One of the houses was marked with graffiti reading: “Muslims go home, Serbs will kill you”. A day later, the inside walls of another Bosniak house under

14 15 16

All above information is from: United Nations High Commission for Refugees (1997) The Right To Return: The Implementation of the Annex 7 to the Dayton Peace Agreement at 3.

Associated Press Internet News wire, “Muslim Families evicted from Croat part of tense Mostar” (February 1997) E-mail from Human Rights Coordination Center and the Office of the High Representative (10 November 1997).

Violations of Human Rights 1994-1997

17

reconstruction were completely demolished and the following night two more houses were damaged in a similar fashion in the village of Begovaca. Again, the motive was to deter Bosnian Muslims from returning to their homes.17 CESCR: Yes (1993) Const: No

BRAZIL Brazil vies with neighbouring Paraguay - Britain isn’t far behind in the league table - for the title of the most unequally divided place on earth, with a land-tenure system that has barely changed since the Portuguese crown dealt out areas the size of modern countries to favoured families 400 years ago.18 Of the 165 million people in Brazil, fewer than 50,000 own most of the land. At the same time, approximately 42% of all privately owned land in Brazil lies idle.19 As a result of these inequalities Brazil has seen the evolution of Sem Terra, a popular movement of landless Brazilians who demand land reform and implement this demand by “squatting” on uncultivated land and resettling people on this land in massive numbers. Sem Terra estimates that the idle land in Brazil would be enough for 3 million hungry peasant families to live on.20 With this form of resettlement comes forced eviction carried out by those who oppose the redistribution of Brazil’s land: private landowners backed by the police and privately funded paramilitary groups.

The Brazilian Movement in Defense of Life and the Popular Front Against Eviction play an active role in combating abuses of housing rights and in helping to promote the active participation of poor people in community leadership and decision-making. In Rio de Janeiro, over 28,000 families without proper homes are united in the Popular Front, which supports the city’s threatened communities. The Front keeps a list of low-income communities threatened with forced eviction and currently there are 106 communities on the list.

UPDATE: COHRE’s Global Survey No. 6 on Forced Eviction reported that, since 1989, there had been periodic evictions of residents from Barra do Tijuca, a protected mangrove ecosystem around a lagoon on the southern outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. A total of 25,000 people living in 56 favelas and other poor communities in the area had undergone, or were threatened with eviction. On the 10-square-kilometre site, the real-estate and construction company, Carvalho Hoskens, planned to build high-rise condominiums comprising 45,000 luxury apartments and offices. The company obtained title to the property from the city authorities, even though the site was public land and therefore could not be sold legally. Nevertheless, after the Supreme Court in Brasilia ruled that the original settlements were illegal, Mayor Cesar Maia of Rio ignored a wave of domestic and international protest and pressed ahead with the evictions.21 • At the end of August 1994, more than 300 armed municipal police and other officials forcibly evicted all 83 families of the Via Parque fishing community in Barra do Tijuca and bulldozed their houses.

Although the residents resisted peacefully, some were beaten with clubs. The community leader who had refused to cooperate with the property developers was killed, the 20th such leader to be assassi17 18 19 20 21

18

Ibid.

John Vidal, “Landless on the long march home” Guardian Weekly (11 May 1997) at 8.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Facsimile from Brazilian Movement in Defense of Life.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

nated since the start of the land conflict. The families were eventually resettled between two dangerous favelas elsewhere in Rio, in tiny houses without water, electricity, toilets, doors or even roof tiles. The city authorities categorically rejected all compensation claims submitted on behalf of the victims, just as they had refused to hear the community’s lawyers prior to the eviction.

• On 15 September 1994, all 55 families of the Vila Marapendi community were evicted by the Rio city authorities.

• On 22 September 1994, 2,000 people were evicted from Vila Autodromo, another Barro do Tijuca community that had existed for decades. Their leader had been murdered in March 1993.22 In the past 10 ten years, Brazil’s agrarian reform law has been implemented in a very piecemeal fashion, with only limited areas of land having been allocated to landless peasant families. The following examples illustrate the treatment meted out to those less fortunate: • On 5 August 1995, gunmen killed six people while forcibly evicting 150 settlers from Fazenda Manah in Santana do Araguaia, Redencao, in the southern part of Para State. At the time, the land situation in the whole region was reported to be very tense.23 • On 9 August 1995, in an operation of unprecedented ferocity, 138 police officers and 49 special ‘shock’ police troops evicted 1,300 landless peasants from Fazenda Santa Eline in the municipality of Corumbiara, Rondonia State. According to corroborated reports, at least 40 people were killed and around 100 seriously wounded. A week later, 500 people were still missing and 530 in detention: 200 - half of whom were children - in a sports stadium in the city of Colorado do Oeste, 180 women and children in church houses and the remaining 150 in police stations, where they were presumed to be undergoing torture. This incident began on 7 July when at least 700 landless people had invaded the Fazenda Santa Eline. On 18 July, a substitute judge in Colorado do Oeste issued an eviction order on request of the landowner. At that time, the eviction could not go ahead because of the settlers’ resistance. On 1 August, an order of immediate eviction was issued, which led to the brutal forced eviction of 9 August. According to surviving settlers, the police violated the Constitution by arriving at night and then proceeded to fire their weapons and to throw tear-gas grenades. Even after quashing all resistance, the police went on killing and torturing people. After the first deaths, one eyewitness said, the police started removing women and children, hitting and kicking them in the process. In the aftermath of the eviction, some 355 people, mostly women and children, were said to have been forced to lie down in the sun for a whole day and then walk 20 kilometres bound with rope. According to settlers and organizations of landless peasants, the death-toll was as high as 70, with 300 people injured. Post-mortem examinations revealed that victims were shot at close range in the face, head, neck and back. The bodily posture of some suggested that they had been bound at the knees at the time of death. One man had 12 shot wounds and his entire face was disfigured by beating. Another had 19 shot wounds. A 7year-old girl died after being shot in the back. These are clear indications of a massacre, rather than an armed struggle between two sides. Allegations that many bodies were dumped in a river or burned, in a clumsy attempt to conceal the extent of the massacre, were supported when one body was recovered from the river and the region’s bishop reported finding charred human bones not far from the scene of the eviction. INCRA, a federal land organ, subsequently declared that the survivors would not be given

22 23

Food First International Action Network (FIAN), (1994) September Newsletter ; O Dia, O Globo and Jornal do Brasil [Brazilian newspapers] (August and September 1994).

UNICEF, Brazil (September 1995).

Violations of Human Rights 1994-1997

19

priority in the official resettlement process called for in the land reform law. INCRA controls 17 million of the total 24 million hectares in Rondonia State. Only 3.3 million hectares have been allocated to landless people.24 • At Fazenda Buriti in Montenegro district, Rondonia State, six settlers were shot by members of the police battalion responsible for the Fazenda Santa Eline eviction. The land conflict involves 250 settlers on a 2,000-hectare site.25 • In May 1996 the Juta Farm, in the east region of Sao Paulo city, was occupied by 440 people. Just one day after the occupation these people were forcibly evicted by State military police. This eviction resulted in three deaths. While the government stated that it would provide housing for those evicted, no housing project for these people has been initiated.26 • On 25 October 1996 the Brazilian Congress gave a green light to the operation of the Serra da Mesa Dam. Environmentalists and human rights advocates have challenged the operation of the dam as it will flood 10% of the reserve of the Ava-Canoeiro, an indigenous group which under the Brazilian constitution should have been consulted before the dam was built. Apparently because only a few “nomadic”bands of the Ava-Canoeiro live in the area flooded by the reservoir, the constitutional requirements were waived. The electrical utility has offered to compensate the 4,300 indigenous peoples who are being forced to relocate by providing them with $100 USD for every $1 million USD the company earns as a result of the project. This compensation has been deemed wholly inadequate by those affected.27 • In January 1997 in Maranhao the owner of the fazenda Santa Filomena, the liquor producer Everardo Ferreira Telles, ordered a violent eviction of the landless peasants occupying the fazenda, in which he participated himself with a gun in his hand. The military police looked on without assisting any of the unarmed peasants.28 CESCR: Yes (1992) Const: Yes (arts. 7 (IV), 23 (IX), 183 and 203 (II))

BURMA (Myanmar) I don’t know of anywhere in the world where they do this kind of thing. Just imagine if it was you, if it was your house, and you had lost everything, you wouldn’t know what to say. I myself, I’ve gone and seen it and I can describe the events ... the people who’ve had to leave their village, where they have children, grandchildren, rice, water, everything. They don’t understand any reason. They’re totally confused. The angels can’t help them... It’s the Four Cuts Policy: Cut communications. Cut supplies, Cut strength, Cut support for the [resistance] soldiers. The first cut is to make the population poor, the second cut is not to let people think. It’s their strategy. They want people to be all confused, so they won’t be able to think, and the soldiers can control them easily.

But it’s not worth it. I know these people, and they are good people. As a monk, I want there to be peace, I want people to be able to survive each day, but it’s impossible. I don’t know what to say. Please tell people of the world what is going on, okay? I don’t know who to tell about these things.

Shan Buddhist monk working with Shan refugees in Thailand 24 25 26 27 28

20

Ibid.

UNICEF, supra note 23.

E-mail from POLIS (15 August 1997).

Glenn Switkes, “Emergency Authorization Granted for Brazilian Dam” (1996) 11, 5 World Rivers Review at 6.

FIAN (1997) January Newsletter, “New Hotlines” at 11.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

In recent years the Burmese military regime, now known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and formerly known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), has engaged in forcibly relocating large groups of people in different parts of the country. In general, such relocations have been carried out either as part of the regime’s “urban development” programme or as part of its counter-insurgency operations in the ethnic minority regions.30 Areas and ethnic groups that have been particularly targeted are the Mon, Karenni, Karen and Shan states. Millions have been forcibly moved since the accession to power of the SLORC in 1988. In some areas, such as that occupied by the Karenni minority group, up to 20 percent of the population are reported to have been subject to relocation.31 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated in the 1994 Human Development Report that a staggering “5% to 10% of the population had been displaced, either within Myanmar or to neighbouring countries”.

As a means of facilitating urban development and “cleansing” the cities of “squatters” the practice of forced relocation typically requires residents of city centre settlements to vacate their existing homes and move to newly established satellite “towns” on very short notice. That some residents actually have title to the land on which they live is simply ignored by government. To ensure compliance, the authorities often first disconnect the electricity and water supplies at the old settlements and then raze them to the ground. Residents have rarely been offered compensation for properties or homes lost, or the necessary assistance for building their new homes. When resettlement sites are offered, they lack the infrastructure to support large-scale relocation of people, having been flooded, lacking proper sewage facilities with little health care provision or sources of clean water, rendering many of those who move there vulnerable to diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea. Once relocated, residents are prohibited from moving again to an area of their choice.

As a form of counter-insurgency, the forced relocation policy involves the declaration of large areas in ethnic minority regions as “free-fire” zones and the expulsion en masse of populations from such areas to government controlled territory. It is commonly part of a strategy known as the “Four Cuts”, cutting off the four main links between civilians and armed opposition forces operating in insurgency prone areas. Those four links are: food, finance, intelligence and recruits. It is estimated that the inhabitants of at least 1,300 ethnic minority villages have been forcibly relocated since 1988.32 At the 49th session of the UN General Assembly on 13 December 1994, the UN Special Rapporteur delivered a scathing report of continued repression, state control and violence by the Burmese military regime.

The UNGA issued a resolution calling for an end to human rights abuses including forced labour and the forced relocation of Burmese civilians. It also specifically censored the regime for its 1994 attack on the Halockhani civilian refugee camp in territory of the Mon ethnic group. That attack was not an isolated event, rather just one aspect of the climate of fear and brutality under SLORC rule. The December 1994 UN resolution came just before SLORC’s big military offensive against the Karen ethnic group and prodemocracy forces in eastern Burma, which continued until February 1995 and included incursions into neighbouring Thailand. During the military campaign, SLORC troops exploited large numbers of civilians in various ways including forced conscription, forced labour in the construction of railways, roads and military bases, and confiscation of money, livestock, crops and other belongings to feed and equip the army. Thousands of civilians had no alternative but to seek refuge on Thai soil.33

30 31 32 33

Article 19 International Centre Against Censorship (August, 1996) Burma Beyond the Law at 46-7.

Ibid. at 47.

Ibid. See Also: The Shan Human Rights Foundation (1996) December Uprooting the Shan at 3.

All-Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) Dawn News Bulletin (Bangkok, Thailand).

Violations of Human Rights 1994-1997

21

Shan State • In the Shan State in March 1996, SLORC launched one of its largest ever forced eviction programmes which continues until the present time. The SLORC embarked on a systematic programme to relocate all villages in suspected resistance areas to towns or sites along main roads and near SLORC army bases.

The SLORC’s aim is to prevent villages from providing any support to the resisting Shan troops and ultimately to force the Shan soldiers to surrender. The Shan Human Rights Foundation in Thailand reports that covering an area of over 5,000 square miles, the SLORC has relocated over 100,000 people or 604 villages from eight townships in the Shan state: Larng Kher, Murng Nai, Nam Zarng, Lai Kha, Murng Kerng, Kun Hing, Ke See, and Murng Su. In most cases the evictees were given only 3-6 days notice to move and were threatened to be shot if they did not comply. Villagers reported being beaten if they could not move their possessions in time. In many instances villagers also reported being robbed by SLORC soldiers while they were moving their possessions and those who appealed against the relocation were beaten and held in detention.34 Making return a physical impossibility, houses in a village are almost invariably burned down to ensure the permanent removal of residents from their village. Some people have had their houses set alight while they were still inside, and in several cases reported from Mong Kung and Chiang Tong areas some elderly people who refused to move were burned to death inside their homes. Others have been shot for returning to their villages to retrieve belongings or food after the relocation deadline.35 Evictees from these 600 villages are now crowded into 45 relocation sites. In most cases, when these Shan villagers were forced to leave their homes they were simultaneously forced to leave behind the predominant means of production and survival: farming. The SLORC chosen relocation sites are barren land that require villagers to build their own shelter and provide their own food and for many, Their plight involves forced labour on the SLORC’s infrastructure projects. At many relocation sites the SLORC troops confiscate all the villagers’ rice, then ration it back out to them in an amount that is not enough for sustenance. The conditions at the relocation sites have been deplorable and as a result, since March 1996 at least 67 people have died.36 The deplorable conditions at the relocation camps has forced at least 20,000 Shan to flee into Thailand. Unlike the Karen, Karenni and Mon refugees from Burma, current Thai policy has denied these Shan safe refuge and the right to receive humanitarian assistance. Shan refugees fleeing to Thailand have been repeatedly pushed back by Thai soldiers. Many refugees in Thailand fear that they will be arrested and either imprisoned or fined. Families try to feed themselves by working on farms or construction sites near Chiang Mai or on construction sites in the town. The irregular and underpaid work they can get as illegal migrants is not enough to meet the needs of the entire family. Starvation and malnourishment are the result.37 • Since the beginning of 1997 the Shan Human Rights Foundation has reported that between the end of November and the middle of December 1996 the villages Na Pa Kao, Mawk Zali, as well as 4 villages in the Murng Tai township: Hai Seng, Nawng Kham Mon, Nawng Khem, Mong Kham, or approximately 1,030 people have been forcibly relocated.38 Upon its post-eviction inspection of the old village of Hai Seng SLORC troops seized 4 women who had come back to take their property and rice which had been left behind because they could not carry it when they were forced to move. All four women were raped by the SLORC troops. SLORC troops use rape as method of punishment and torture

34 35 36 37 38

22

Shan Human Rights Foundation, supra note 32.

Karen Human Rights Group (1996) June Forced Relocation in Central Shan State at 2.

Calculation based on statistics as cited in: The Shan Human Rights Foundation, supra note 32.

FIAN, (1997) Urgent Action 03/97 Concerning: Forced relocation of about 100,000 Shan people in Burma.

Shan Human Rights Foundation, (1997) January - February Monthly Reports. Figures are based on statistics as cited in these Monthly Reports; where statistics were not provided an average of 170 people per village was used to quantify numbers of people evicted.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

against women, to exercise power and control over them in a variety of circumstances including when women are found in their old villages collecting their abandoned property or food.

• In an area on the Pon River, Baw La Keh, the biggest wave of relocation began on 1 June 1996 when an order was issued to all 98 villages between the Pon and Salween Rivers to move to relocation sites beside SLORC Army camps at Shadaw and Ywathit. The order stipulated that after 7 June 1996 anyone seen in or around any of these villages would be “considered an enemy”, shot on sight with no questions asked. While most of the villagers affected by the relocations are ethnically Kayah, there are also many Shans who have no connection to the opposition groups or relocations now occurring in Shan state.39 The All Burma Students’ Democratic Front reported in May 1997 that during the carrying out of forced relocation orders, Karenni civilians were subjected to torture, rape, extra-judicial killings, and other forms of cruel and inhuman treatment by the military. They also reported that many Karenni villagers have been killed when found by SLORC troops in their homes after a stipulated relocation deadline.40 • As part of its strategy against the KNPP, SLORC has turned its attention to the civilian population. To date, an estimated 70,000 - 75,000 Karenni had been forcibly removed from their homes.41 Throughout June and July 1996 the SLORC conducted a particularly massive forced relocation campaign which affected almost every area where the KNPP had ever operated.

• The Karen Human Rights Group reported that in June and the first half of July 1996 alone, 183 villages or between 25,000 - 30,000 people are known to have been moved throughout the Shadaw, Ywathit, Daw Tama, Baw La Keh, Pruso, Deemawso, Pah Saung and May Chi areas.42 Evictees were provided with very short notice periods, ranging from 1 day to a week. This meant, that most were unable to bring their belongings with them and were forced to abandon their farming during the raining season. Relocated persons were not given any compensation for their losses.

• As in the case of the Shan State evictees, contrary to promises given by SLORC, the relocation sites provided by SLORC to the Karenni are grossly inadequate. At most sites there is insufficient water, disease is rampant and death common. The Karen Human Rights Group recently reported that, as a result of poor living conditions, an estimated 300 people have died in Shadaw and 100 have died in Mawachi.43 As at the Shan State relocation sites, the Karenni are allocated an area of scrubland and then told to clear it. No one has any land to farm nor are they allowed to return to farm their home fields. Families have been separated and at many of the relocation sites no one is permitted to travel from their assigned living quarters without permission and evictees are forbidden to try to locate relatives from other villages.44 • At least 3,000 people have fled the relocation areas to the Karenni refugee camps in Thailand, despite the difficulty and danger of the 4 to 7 day walk in the monsoon rain and mud through the forest and over mountains, with little or nothing to eat and the possibility of encountering SLORC troops at any point along the way. A very high proportion of these refugees arrive suffering malaria, respiratory infec-

39 40 41 42 43 44

Karen Human Rights Group, (1996) July Forced Relocation in Karenni at 2.

All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, (1997) May Forced Relocation and Human Rights Abuses in Karenni State, Burma.

Agence France-Presse, “Ethnic Karenni appeal to West, Asean for aid” The Nation (27 July 1996).

Karen Human Rights Group, supra note 39.

Karen Human Rights Group, (1997) February Information Update at 2.

Green November 32, (1996) Exodus: An Update on the Current Situation in Karenni at 6.

Violations of Human Rights 1994-1997

23

tions, fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, dysentery, skin diseases, malnutrition and exhaustion. Many children have died on arrival at the camp.45

Monland State • In 1995 the SLORC set up a military command in Mergui, the capital of the Tenasserim Division in the Monland State. This military command has actively controlled the whole area with over 50 battalions.

The relocation of the population was used as a strategy to ensure control over the area. Between October and November 1996, 47 villages in the Townships of Mergui, Tenasserim and Boke Pyin were forcibly relocated, affecting the lives of thousands of Mons. Again the Four Cuts policy was employed by the government troops. Some of the ethnic communities that were relocated had been on the land for over 100 years. Despite SLORC’s promises to ensure the provision of schools, hospitals, residences for government servants and buildings of town residents at the relocation sites, no such services were provided.

• On 22 October 1994, SLORC troops penetrated Ye Pone village of Ye Phyu township in Tenasserim division and gunned down innocent Karens who were running for their lives. A 63-year-old villager was killed and two others arrested, and have not been seen since. Those who escaped said the village had been completely burned.46 • Total Company, a French owned business, is currently laying a gas pipeline in Southern Burma which is facilitating the violation of the human rights of the Mons living in the region. For example, the presence of more SLORC troops in the region to strengthen the security of the gas pipeline project, has required more military encampments in order to strengthen their defensive and offensive position against the guerilla forces active in the region. As a result, the local population has consistently been forced to contribute both labour and money for the building of the several new encampments. Additionally, SLORC has been constructing or repairing rail and motor roads in the region to facilitate the deployment and movement of SLORC troops who will protect the pipeline area. In turn, the Mons have been subjected to consistent forced labour on these infrastructure and “development” projects. Not surprisingly, the pipeline has resulted in many forced relocations. 6 villages in the Yebyu township: Mea Taw, Chabon, Taung Khon, Chaung Phyar, Danikyar and Mea Than Taung were ordered to relocate by 20 February 1997 at the latest. The Mon Information Service reported that as of March 1997 the villagers of Mea Taw had already all vacated from the village site and the other 5 villages were in the process of the relocation. The local SLORC military used brutal measures in the process of the forced relocation. It burnt down at least 4 houses in Mea Taw and plundered the area as well.47

Karen State48 • On 11 December 1994, in an attempt to capture Dawn Gwin, SLORC troops forced non-combatants in areas held by the All-Burma Students’ Democratic Front along the Salween river to evacuate to the Thai side of the border. After the troops captured Lae Toe outpost, some 2,000 villagers fled from the area to Mae Kar Hta, a Thai border village opposite Dawn Gain. After the fall of the town of Manerplaw, stronghold of the Karen and pro-democracy forces, another 4,000 civilians fled from their homes in that area to the confluence of the Salween and Moei rivers.

45

46 47 48

24

Karen Human Rights Group, supra note 39.

Dawn News Bulletin, supra note 33.

Mon Information Service, (1997) The Situation of the People Living in the Gas Pipeline Project Region at 10.

Except where noted, the information pertaining to evictions in the Karen State is from: Karen Human Rights Group (1997) June Information Update.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

• On 1 February 1995, SLORC attacks in the area of Paw Pa Hta forced villagers from that area to flee into Thailand. 2,000 people from Nyaunglebin and Taungoo townships in Pegu division and from Papun township in Karen State fled to U Hta Ta, about 8 kilometres north of Dawn Gwin to escape being forced to work as porters for the SLORC military columns. After hearing that SLORC troops were active in the area, 1,215 Karen refugees from Tenasserim division fled to Sai Yok near the provincial capital of Kanchanaburi, Thailand. At that time, at least 15,000 Burmese civilians fled to Thailand seeking safety. Instead, they were subjected to even more violence. In a series of incidents, troops of SLORC and the Democratic Kayin (Karen) Buddhist Association, raided refugee camps on Thai soil, killing and wounding inmates, abducting key officials and stealing food provided for the refugees. As a result, some refugees were too scared to stay in Thailand and returned to Burmese soil.49 • In February and March 1997, the SLORC began a campaign to obliterate all villages in the hills of Papun District, northern Karen State. This heavy offensive has resulted in an exodus of 20,000 new refugees into Thailand.50 The initial wave of village destruction was carried out in March 1997, but since the beginning of June 1997 SLORC patrols have stepped up their efforts to destroy all signs of habitation and food supplies wherever villagers had managed to rebuild. To date, the Karen Human Rights Group has compiled a list of dozens of villages which have been completely burned and destroyed and 4 which have been partially burned. Each of these are Karen villages averaging 15 households with a population of approximately 100 persons per village. Each village has been demolished in a similar fashion. Between 50 - 300 SLORC troops shell the village with mortars from adjacent hills, then enter the village firing at anything that moves. The troops then burn every house, farm field hut, and shelter they find. Paddy storage barns are especially sought out and burned in order to destroy the villagers’ food supply. Almost all livestock is slaughtered. Any villagers seen in the villages, forests, or fields are shot on sight with no questions asked. Villagers will often hear of the pending demolition a day in advance and will flee further into the hills. Once the troops have destroyed the village, the villagers remain in the forest living in small huts. The vast majority of villages so destroyed were not given relocation sites on which to move. Malaria and other fevers, diarrhoea, dysentery and other diseases are widespread and the villagers have no medicine whatsoever. Many children and elderly persons have died. Approximately 1,000 villagers from the area have managed to escape to Thailand. Most of the villagers in the area think that the SLORC is simply trying to wipe out the Karen population as resistance troops are not based in any of the affected villages and have never been in a village when attacked. To make matters worse, the SLORC is now trying to build a military supply road straight across the northern part of the area in the Sittang River valley of central Burma, directly eastward to Saw Hta on the Salween River, which forms the border with Thailand. They have burned and destroyed all villages along the route and have been constructing the road with bulldozers under heavy military guard.

Arakan State • In November 1994, SLORC troops and police raided Muslim villages in Mrohaung township. The villagers were ordered to board transport vehicles immediately and thus had no alternative but to leave their livestock and crops behind. They were eventually taken to the town of Maung Daw to which 170 Muslim households from Minbya had already been forcibly moved in July. Another group of Muslim civilians, 6,000 from Kawalong and 160 from Mahamyatmuni in Kyauktaw township, were also transported to Maung Daw. The displaced Muslims in Arakan State were reported to have suffered brutal oppression under the SLORC’s Frontier Administration.51

49 50 51

Dawn News Bulletin, supra note 33.

Andrew Bosson, “The Buddhist Generals and the Bottom Line” (June 1997) Human Rights Tribune at 31.

Dawn News Bulletin, supra note 33.

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Burma State • On 10 September 1994, SLORC troops fired mortar shells into the village of No Phone in Kawkareik township, forcing the villagers to flee. The bombardment was the final episode of the regime’s intimidation of the community. Earlier in the year, 200 households had been forced to move to a new site about 5 kilometres away. The villagers resisted, hid in the surrounding jungle and then returned to their homes. On 23 June, they were ordered to leave by the end of the month and warned that, if they failed to obey, the village would be declared a war zone. The people were unable to abandon the village, which had been inhabited for generations. They also had no materials to build shelters at the new site.

They stayed in the village until the attack of 10 September. Other communities affected by forced relocation in late 1994 include six villages in Win Yaw and Thanbyuzayat townships, from which a total of 285 households (about 1,620 people) were moved.52 • In a campaign designed to raise income from tourism and cosmetically mask widespread civil strife, the SLORC dubbed 1996 “Visit Myanmar Year”. In 1994, at least 500 families are known to have been evicted from their homes in Rangoon, in preparation for the much-vaunted influx of tourists.53 The regime’s hope, that 250,000 foreign visitors would visit the country in 1996, seemed unrealistic in the light of the 1993 - 1994 season, which saw only 40,000 to 60,000 tourists. Nonetheless, investors in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, France and England were happy to finance countless hotel-building projects in the run-up to “Visit Myanmar Year”. Those living on sites earmarked for construction were understandably less euphoric, as they faced eviction without adequate compensation. In Mandalay, the country’s former capital, it was reported that people who still lived in traditional wooden houses were forced to convert them into modern, two-storey buildings. If they could not finance the renovation, they were relocated to sites outside the city where there were almost no facilities. The same applied to those living alongside the main Rangoon to Mandalay railway. Reports of forced renovation and eviction were also coming in from other parts of the country. The Minister of Hotels and Tourism, boasted: “Where there should be flowers, there will be flowers; where there should be trees, there will be trees.”54 CESCR: No Const: No

CAMBODIA 55 Information regarding forced evictions in Cambodia focuses on those which occur in Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh has an estimated population of one million and is expected to double in size by the year 2005. There are close to 200 slums and squatter settlements in the city, housing approximately 74,000 families or 300,000 persons. Most settlements do not have access to safe water, health care, adequate garbage collection or proper sewerage systems. Despite the fact that most settlements were established 18 years ago, residents do not possess security of land tenure. A large number of households are women-headed and many single women live independently among the squatter communities. As Phnom Penh is rapidly urbanized, forced evictions of various kinds are flourishing.

The bulk of the forced evictions that have occurred in Phnom Penh possess the following common characteristics:

52 53 54 55

26

Ibid.

Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), (1994) Eviction Watch Asia.

Minka Nijhuis, ‘Schoonheid onder dwang’ [Beauty enforced] (1995) November Onze Wereld [Our World].

Except where otherwise noted all of the information pertaining to evictions in Cambodia is taken from: ACHR, Eviction Watch supra note 3 at 8-23.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

• Sufficient notice periods for dwellers have been conspicuously absent, rendering it nearly impossible for evictees to negotiate the eviction, to take action to halt the eviction or where necessary to find alternative accommodation.

• Local administration has failed to develop a clear and practical policy to initiate dialogue with poor communities to listen to their concerns and their suggestions regarding possible alternatives to the eviction prior to the issuance of eviction notices or the carrying out of evictions.

• Whilst carrying out the forced evictions threats and physical force are used.

• Authorities have failed to offer adequate compensation, building materials or even transport facilities to enable dwellers to relocate.

• Temporary shelters and long-term alternative sites have not been provided to evictees.

• Between June 1994 and August 1995 about 1,700 families (8,500 persons) were forcibly removed from 16 settlements to “develop and/or beautify” Phnom Penh. All of these evictions were carried out by heavily armed soldiers and police. Insufficient warning was given, so that the bulldozers effectively destroyed building materials which could have been re-used elsewhere. Because the relocation sites were in remote locations, the affected people lost their main source of income. The compensation paid (the equivalent of US$10 per family) was clearly inadequate. The Cambodian government is said to frequently collude with businesses and foreign investors to evict the poor.56 • From January to August 1996 the Urban Sector Group recorded that in Phnom Penh 5,000 people had been evicted from their homes. Beyond urban beautification, the government justifies these evictions on the basis that those occupying the land are doing so illegally. Local authorities in Cambodia retain the legal power to evict persons dwelling in “illegal settlements” or for development purposes and national governments can act through the local authorities.

• “Accidental fires” continue to occur in Phnom Penh, often resulting in intentional relocation. For example, in September 1995 a fire that broke out in the Bassac area of Phnom Penh destroyed the houses of 166 families. Police and government officials refused to allow the residents to return to rebuild their houses claiming that to do so would be a “danger to the urban environment”. After intense negotiations, the government softened its stand and allowed the evictees to put up plastic sheets and to reside temporarily in the area. Local community organizations are now discussing possible alternative relocation sites with the Municipality.

• In Poechentong Community in Phnom Penh, on 22 January 1996 at 7:30 a.m., 47 families were forcibly evicted from their homes by approximately 140 armed soldiers (carrying machine guns) escorted by a bulldozer, fire trucks, ambulance and police trucks. The residents asked the soldiers if they could postpone the eviction so that the dwellers could remove their houses themselves so as to preserve the building materials to rebuild their homes elsewhere. The soldiers refused and announced that anybody who resisted would be shot. Two women were beaten when they asked the soldiers not to throw their fruit on the ground and a young boy was arrested because he shouted at the police. The families are now living on nearby private land on plastic sheets provided by an NGO.

56

D. Respall, (1996) Summary Report of the Housing Rights & Eviction: East-Southeast Asian Caucus.

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• Community activism has worked on occasion to slow down the process of forced eviction or to fundamentally alter its terms. For example, in the Kim Son community about 63 families were threatened with an eviction order. The residents organized and immediately began to negotiate through their community group with government officials about the possibility of the government providing support to rehouse the dwellers at an alternate site. This occurred in two stages. First, residents maintained constant contact with local/neighbourhood officials and explained to them the various alternatives, convincing them of the need to look at options designed by the Kim Son community. Second, the Chief of the Land Titles Department was invited to the community on two occasions to participate in discussions. He was ultimately convinced by the community proposals and allowed them to proceed with the re-housing plans as an alternative to forced evictions and he agreed to issue title to the re-housed families.

CESCR: Yes (1992) Const: No

CHINA In Chinese cities, the local state government has the power to forcibly relocate residents at will, with affected dwellers having little or no recourse to legal remedies and due process rights to oppose the eviction concerned. Although the majority are provided with replacement housing, they have no formal power in defining how much information is available in advance, when relocation will happen, what kind of housing will be given and where it will be located. Communities are often dislocated by the process of relocation.

• In the city of Nanjing on 18 June 1994, on the orders of the Nanjing Drum Tower District People’s Government, 300 judicial and law enforcement personnel, marshals, government workers and hired peasants forcibly evicted the residents of Hanzhong Menwai Boulevard from their private dwellings.

The hired peasants then demolished the houses, seized the building materials and subsequently sold them for profit. The government department in charge of evictions in Nanjing municipality did not give the residents prior notice that they must vacate the site, their land-use and residential rights had not been transferred to anyone else and they had signed no agreements on compensation and resettlement with the real estate company that was to develop the site. For more than six months after the site was cleared, it was used as a garbage dump and no new construction was started, despite a notice posted by the district government, which included the ironic phrase: “In order … to promote the personal interests of the residents who have already moved out and to increase the speed of the rebuilding of housing on the said area…”. The Nanjing Municipal Government ignored an appeal to stop the demolitions and evictions, more of which occurred in the city on 6 July 1994.57 • On 31 December 1994, several hundred residents of Lao Lane redevelopment area in the old centre of Xi’an City set up a road block and staged a sit-down protest. The real estate development company building new housing for them was demanding at least three times the agreed price per square metre floor space, in direct violation of local redevelopment regulations. The residents appealed against this extortion to the company and the authorities, but in vain. Their demonstration was broken up by gun-toting People’s Army Police. In the past two years, there have been many protests against the Xi’an old city renovation plan and the forced demolitions and often violent evictions carried out under it, but all have been suppressed by the authorities. While leaders trumpet the plan as a brilliant “political achievement”, its opponents believe the replacement of old courtyard houses with modern, high-rise

57

28

Various authors, “City Residents Fight for a Say in Redevelopment” (1996) Summer China Rights Forum at 18-21.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

buildings is evidence of officials colluding with business to make huge profits from the resale and development of public land at the expense of the relocated residents.58 • On 9 and 10 March 1995, between 200 and 300 angry Shanghai city centre residents held protests and blocked traffic for several hours on the city’s main shopping thoroughfare, Huai Hai Road, in protest against their planned eviction and relocation to remote suburbs. Their old neighbourhood had been scheduled for demolition to make way for a commercial real estate development. On 11 March 1995, 48 families living on Jiaozhou Street, site of a planned office complex, were ordered to move out of their homes by the demolition date of 30 June 1995. Most of the families sent a petition to the mayor, the district office and Shanghai members of the National People’s Congress, protesting that the development was not in accordance with construction plans of the Shanghai Municipal Government (SMG).

The SMG said it aimed to relocate 60,000 families in 1995 and that 70% to 80% of the homes to be destroyed were shacks and houses in poor or dangerous conditions. The evictions of hundreds of thousands of people from inner-city areas has caused enormous resentment in booming Shanghai, and has resulted in numerous confrontations between residents and gangs of wreckers protected by police.

According to the SMG, 200,000 households (about 620,000 people) were forcibly resettled in the first half of the 1990s. Other sources put the figure at closer to two million people. SMG officials say another 200,000 households will have to be moved in the near future. In November 1993, a Chinese newspaper report on a SMG planning seminar said that, in the early 1990s, 10,000 residents were relocated from the district of Huang Pu every year. By the year 2000, the district’s total population would have fallen from 320,000 to 250,000. Plans for a major redevelopment in the district of Lujiazui require the relocation of 51,000 people, along with many of the 169,000 people living in the immediate vicinity. The vast majority are being relocated to blocks of poorly designed flats, often far from the city centre.

Interviews with residents have shown that all understand that, if the SMG requires them to move, they must do so.59 • In Beijing, a metropolis of 11 million in which some 200,000 residents have less than four square metres of living space per person, the local government is frantically modernizing the older areas of the city under a 10-year plan to eradicate what it sees as dilapidated and dangerous housing with no amenities. The city aims to double the average floor space per person by the turn of the century and relocate 200,000 people from the centre to the distant suburbs within 15 years. Nearly all the city’s traditional neighbourhoods with one-storey cottages and small lanes, hutongs, or multi-pavilion houses around a courtyard or siheyuan are being demolished and replaced by row upon row of concrete tower blocks in a development boom fueled by foreign investment. With land prices the fourth highest in Asia, large numbers of real-estate developers are entering the market and government officials are parcelling out building sites and granting land-use rights with a view to short-term gains. In mid-1994, the number of projects was estimated at 180, and two million square metres of extra commercial and residential floor space was expected to be built by 1997 (mainly luxury villas and apartments, shopping spaces and office complexes designed for the foreign companies that are rushing in). Only a few historic buildings and three specially selected traditional neighbourhoods are being preserved for posterity. One of the biggest projects, Financial Street, calls for the demolition of 20,000 homes, some built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and the creation of a huge commercial and banking centre. Even small projects force the relocation of 200 to 300 families. In 1995, residents of Jainguomenwia Avenue in Chaoyang district resisted plans for office complexes on the sites of their homes. They were promptly evicted by the police and their homes demolished. Even in those cases where residents are given priority in buying newly built 58 59

Ibid.

Ibid; The Globe and Mail (11 March 1995); The Guardian Weekly (11 June 1995); The Sydney Morning Herald (29 April 1995); Kris Olds, Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Bristol (September 1995) [unpublished].

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29

houses, only about 30% can afford it. Most of the affected people have no alternative but to move 10 or even 30 kilometres from their original homes. As an incentive, the city offers high premiums and even larger living space to those who immediately accept relocation. Some people have been cheated, though. In one case, city-centre residents were taken by bus to view an impressive new block of flats but, having agreed to move, discovered that they had actually been allocated far inferior housing that had yet to be completed. One family lived for 18 months in ‘temporary accommodation’ with cardboard walls and leaking roofs before discovering that the site of their future home had been rented to a foreign project developer, who had built flats and rented them for a much higher price.60 • In November 1995, a Beijing neighbourhood known as Zhejiang Village, a ghetto housing 100,000 migrants from the south-eastern province of Zhejiang, was scheduled for total demolition. Residents were told to vacate their homes and workplaces by the end of the month. This was part of a government plan to discourage rural dwellers from flooding into China’s big cities and to cut the proportion of migrants in each urban district by half. Between 1985 and 1995, 100 million people are believed to have moved into cities, reducing the rural share in the country’s total population from 80% to 65%. Over three million of them went to Beijing, and twenty-five migrant ‘villages’ sprang up around the capital. 61 CESCR: No Const: No

COLOMBIA • Between December 1995 and December 1996, more than 36,000 households were forcibly evicted from their homes, resulting in the displacement of at least 180,000 people. The manner in which evictions in Colombia take place are particularly brutal. On any given day, at dawn or dusk, without warning, a group of guerilla fighters will appear in a village, take 10 or 12 hostages and then enter the houses to loot and steal food. A few weeks later, in the same village, paramilitary squads will appear, summon all the inhabitants to the main square and summarily execute the members of six or seven families as a punishment for “being accomplices to the guerillas”. They then give the survivors 24 hours to evacuate their houses. The remaining evidence of these events are the uninhabited hamlets that now dot the north and centre of Colombia; entire villages without any people.62 CESCR: Yes (1976) Const: No

CROATIA The competing issues of housing for displaced persons and refugees and the right of return for those who fled their homes because of the war has created a complex and tense situation that has resulted in violent forced evictions.

• In October 1995, a wave of forced evictions of tenants from Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) apartments occurred in the port city of Split. A similar wave of evictions was reported in the capital, Zagreb. On 17 August 1995, the Croatian government enforced the new “Law on the Privatization of Apartments under Tenancy Right”, which stated that tenants of former JNA apartments were required to apply to 60 61 62

30

The Globe and Mail (23 October 1993); Kari Huus “No Place Like Home” Far Eastern Economic Review (28 July 1994); NRC Handelsblad (22 July 1995).

International Herald Tribune (28 November 1995).

Tomas Eloy Martinez, “Slaughter - Then Silence - in Colombian Villages” The International Herald Tribune, (18 June 1997) at 9.

Statistics are from Colombia’s Office for Human Rights and Displaced People, an official institution. It should be noted that other sources claim that at least 1.5 million people have been displaced during the same period.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

the Ministry of Defence prior to 17 October 1995 to acquire the right of purchase. In the run-up to 17 October, members of the Military Housing Commission (MHC) conspired with soldiers of the 4th Brigade of the Croatian Army in a scramble for apartments in Split. 4th Brigade soldiers illegally, and sometimes violently, evicted tenants. There were reports of legal occupants being invited by a non-existent MHC ‘sub-commission’ to discuss their apartment rights. Some were told that if they did not appear, the Defence Ministry would not process their requests to buy the apartments they lived in. Those that did appear, returned home afterwards to find their apartments sealed by the Ministry. The apartments were later occupied by soldiers. The Military Police simply ignored a decree, issued by their president on 19 May 1994, that soldiers responsible for illegal evictions were to be removed from the apartments in which they occupied. Croatian human rights groups were looking into ways to prevent such forced evictions in the future.63 • Similarly, the Zagreb Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights received many complaints relating to the forcible and unlawful eviction of persons from State-owned apartments in Croatia. These evictions were routinely carried out by uniformed members of the Croatian Army. For example, according to the Croatian Helsinki Committee in a statement released 3 October 1996, more than 100 houses were forcibly entered and illegally occupied by a group of soldiers from the Croatian Army, as well as some members of the Croatian War Veterans’ Association, in Milna on the island of Brac between 15 August 1996 and the end of September 1996. The perpetrators frequently identified houses and marked them with signs before illegally moving into them.64 • As a result of the war in the former Yugoslavia many Serbian Croats fled their homes terrified of the fighting. Now that peace has finally descended, those who fled are ready and wanting to return to their homes. Upon their return, however, Serbian returnees often find their houses in Croatia occupied predominantly by refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This process has been helped by the Law on Temporary Take Over and Administration of Certain Property of September 1995. This puts the property of those who fled from Krajina in 1995, those who left Croatia after 17 August 1990 for Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or Republika Srpska in Bosnia and the citizens of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia whose property is in the territory of Croatia, under the temporary administration of the Republic of Croatia which allows refugees, displaced persons and others to live on such property and to take title after having resided there for 10 years.65 Although Croatia is obliged to return the property to those who have come back to Croatia or provide them with adequate compensation, by the end of 1996 not one of those who asked for the return of their property has received it.

• A similar situation exists in many towns in Croatia affecting people whose flats have been occupied, mostly by displaced persons (mainly Serbs) from Eastern Slavonia. These displaced persons have become protected by the law since June 1995 when the “Changes and Amendments to the Law on Status of Refugees and Displaced Persons” was enforced. Since then, all the procedures of forced evictions of displaced persons who have moved into other people’s houses or flats before 1 March 1995, have been cancelled. Consequently, even if owners or tenancy rights holders of flats possess valid court decisions evicting displaced persons, those decisions cannot be executed and they cannot enter their own flats or houses.66

63 64 65 66

Otvorene-Oci (Croatian Branch of the Balkan Peace Team) (1995) Evictions in Split and the Role of the Military.

Commission on Human Rights, Periodic Report of the Special Rapporteur, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1997/9 par. 58 - 59.

Civic Committee for Human Rights (1997) Report on Current Situation of Human Rights in Croatia (submitted to the Commission on Human Rights, 53rd Session) at 3.

Ibid.

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• The International Herald Tribune recently reported that “mobs” of Bosnian Croat refugees rampaged through at least four Serbian villages in Kostajnica, Croatia, breaking into homes, smashing household contents and forcing dozens of Serbs to flee in terror to the safety of the surrounding woods. The attacks were part of a mounting campaign by groups of ethnic Croats, who have been resettled in Croatia and many of whom now live in homes that belong to Serbs, to drive the some 100,000 remaining Serbs from the country or block returning Serbs from resettling in their communities. This incident followed Zagreb’s sweeping confiscation of Serbs’ homes and attempts to distribute the property to ethnic Croats living in Bosnia, Serbia, or in exile in such countries as Germany. Human rights and relief officials fear that the police’s failure to ensure the safe return of the Serbs - most of whom are elderly - to their homes gives a green light to all Croats who want to purge Serbs from Croatia. At least several dozens of homes were ransacked and four villages were emptied of Serbian inhabitants.67 CESCR: Yes (1991) Const: No

INDIA • Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) compiled press reports of evictions in India between 1994 and 1996. Of those evictions reported, most occurred in either Mumbai (Bombay) or Delhi and the numbers are staggering. At least 54,400 hutments; more than 9,000 structures (which includes houses as well as commercial shops and other buildings); approximately 200 jhuggies; over 2,500 shanties and more than 10 entire slum communities were eradicated.68 In all, tens of thousands of dwellers were forcibly removed from their homes and place of employment in a two year period. These figures are of course, far smaller than the actual numbers of evictions that have occurred as they only reflect those evictions that were reported in the print media. Both COHRE and YUVA suspect that these numbers would be dramatically higher if all incidents of eviction were included.

Mumbai My mother has to face the most amount of problems during an eviction. They evict our house to broaden roads, to make the roads clean because they say we keep the surroundings dirty Child Pavement Dweller in Mumbai There are approximately 12 million people currently living in Mumbai. Of that number between 50-60% live in slums and at least 1 million people live on the pavement and near railroad tracks. Many pavement dwellers are first or second generation immigrants who came to the city for a variety of reasons including the absence of parents in the case of children and to search for a livelihood in the case of both adults and children. As immigrants, with no acquaintances in the city, they often settle in areas with access to amenities, for example, near a pipeline.

The people of Mumbai have faced forced evictions for decades, though evictions reached their height between 1985 and 1989 at which time people were literally placed in trucks and moved out of the city.

Many of these evictions are a result of the state government’s decision to convert the city into a mini Singapore. Evictions are normally carried out by gangsters (protected by the police) who commence by bulldozing homes and complete the task by burning the dwellers’ personal property. Victims of forced eviction in Mumbai are rarely offered any suitable, adequate alternate accommodation, nor are they

67 68

32

Chris Heges, “Refugee Mobs Terrorize Serb Villages in Croatia” International Herald Tribune (1997) at 5.

Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) (1997) June Summary of Evictions 1994 - 1996.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

offered any compensation for destroyed homes and personal possessions. When alternate accommodation is provided, it rarely comes with security of tenure.69 In Mumbai the general reaction to evictions involves strong resistance. At the local level people protest, roads are blocked and human barriers are formed as a means of resisting evictions.70 Those who resist demolitions and eviction are often arrested and charged.71 Slum and pavement dwellers have no security of tenure at all.

Photo passes and identity cards are issued by government officials on condition that the government can - at will - remove them from their place of residence. Photo passes specifically stipulate that they do not confer security of tenure and monies Eviction of Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Mumbai collected from the slum dwellers for the passes is regarded as a “fine”. Those who are compelled to live on the pavement or footpaths do not receive adequate electricity or water mainly because they have no tenure or legal rights for their residence in such areas.72 What follows are some examples of evictions that have taken place in Mumbai between 1994 and 1997.

• On 20 and 24 April 1994 part of Anandnagar, Jogeshwari (West) was demolished in a particularly brutal fashion. On the first day, a portion of the settlement was burned down by a petrol fire and the remainder was demolished by 3 bulldozers. A few days after this incident a government official visited the site and assured the residents that no further demolitions would occur. The next day, however, 13 bulldozers were used to carry out the rest of the demolitions. Women and children were beaten up during the demolition and two children died as a result. Most of the residents had not received notice.73 • On 6 June 1994 the then Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) demolished 500 homes in the Mahakalinagar, Worli area because the homes were located on ‘unsafe’ land.74 Those affected were provided notice and were offered resettlement accommodation, however the relocation site was in Malwani (outside of the Worli area). Malwani, at some distance from Mahakalinagar, was deemed an unsuitable relocation site as it would have caused the dwellers extreme dislocation from their communities and livelihood. Additionally, the offer for alternate accommodation was restricted to those who had resided in Mahakalinagar since 1985 and did not provide security of tenure for those who relocated as the relocation site land was leased to the residents with the proviso that it would be returned to the government whenever the government so required. As a result, most of those whose houses were demolished are now compelled to live on the side of the road and those houses that were spared demolition were left without electricity and water.75

69 70 71 72 73 74 75

The Indian People’s Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights (Indian People’s Tribunal) (1994) Forced Evictions (Fifth Report) at 1, 17.

ACHR, supra note 3 at 23.

The Indian People’s Tribunal, supra note 69 at 17.

Ibid.

Ibid. at 15.

200 huts were demolished in this area in 1993.

The Indian People’s Tribunal, supra note 69 at 7.

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• According to YUVA, in the period September to December 1994 there were mass evictions from nine different pavement communities in Mumbai. The Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC), assisted by the police, forcibly evicted a total of 6,650 people (1,090 families) from land owned by the BMC and the Maharashtra State Government. In none of the cases was notice provided, nor was any compensation or relocation site subsequently offered. The settlements had existed for between 10 and 25 years. The worst cases were at Bharat Nagar, Matung, where 2,000 people were evicted, and at Nityanand Nagar, Ghat Koper, where 1,920 people lost their homes.

• On 22 May 1995 approximately 800 huts in a slum colony situated near the Backbay Reclamation Bus Depot were demolished to make way for the construction of a helipad (a take-off and landing pad for helicopters). Dwellers were not provided with any notice and barely had enough time to collect their belongings prior to the destruction of their homes. Some of the slum dwellers had lived on the site for 8 years and had been evicted from the site on other occasions. 13 protestors were arrested.

• In May 1996, YUVA reported that 1,018 dwellings in 10 other pavement communities had been demolished between November 1995 and mid-February 1996. The settlements had existed for between 7-25 years. The worst cases were at Gorabdev (300 dwellings destroyed), Prakash Nagar (150 dwellings) and Moreland Land Road, Jhanpadpatti (150 dwellings). On coming to power, the new Maharashtra State Government, promised to provide free housing to four million slum dwellers. It appointed a study group to make recommendations on how to achieve this ambitious goal. The group’s report, presented in July 1995, called for pavement dwellers to be included in the scheme. On 4 March 1996, the State Government promised to provide free housing for 500,000 pavement dwellers and to reconstruct 19,000 old and dilapidated buildings in the metropolis. Despite this, demolitions of pavement shelters continue in Mumbai.76 • Between May and June 1996, as governments all over the world debated and endorsed the right to housing and protection against forced evictions at the United Nations Global Conference on Human Settlements, Habitat II, brutal evictions were taking place in Mumbai. Approximately 150 communities and 32,000 houses belonging to slum and pavement dwellers were demolished resulting in the forced eviction of approximately 150,000 people.77. Affected communities included: Worli, Andheri (East and West), Trombay, Sion, Malad, Masjid, Vakola, Govandi, Bandra, Bombay Central, Byculla, Vikhroli, Colaba, Chembur, Cross Maidan, Wadibunder, Kurla, Goregoan, Deonar, Raey Road, Santacruz, Khar, Vile Parle, Bhandup and Bhendi Bazaar. The first eviction during this period occurred in early May and by June activities intensified with the eviction of 63 communities. On 7 June, 16 evictions affecting 2,236 households took place and on 12 June a staggering 7,000 households were forcibly evicted. Notice was not provided prior to these demolitions and no intimation, explanation, tip or threat was made apprising the communities of their impending fate. Though most of the evictions occurred between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., some took place in the middle of the night and many involved violence. Women were harassed, women and children were pulled by the hair and many dwellers were beaten and threatened. As a result, 2 children died. These evictions were particularly ruthless and illegal as they took place during the monsoons.78 The government justified the act by stating that the houses were unauthorized,79 despite the fact that many had proof of the legitimacy of their dwellings such as voting lists, electricity bills, water bills and land records all issued by the government.

Many of the families evicted were forced to reside in the open air, exposed to inclement weather. Many 76 77 78 79

34

YUVA, supra note 68; ACHR, supra note 3.

Habitat International Coalition (HIC) (1996) October HIC NEWS at 18.

In 1985, the Supreme Court of India issued a directive that no eviction shall take place during the Monsoon.leaving many exposed to harsh weather.

YUVA (May/June 1996) information contained in Press Conference Kit.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

have constructed new dwellings at the same site or have moved to nearby areas, some have temporarily moved in with their relatives in other communities in Mumbai and some communities have taken shelter on railway platforms.80 • According to YUVA on 27 December 1996 the people of Ishwar Nagar were caught unawares when, at 11:30 a.m., 4 bulldozers, accompanied by several constables and electricians, came to their community to demolish their homes. The forced eviction was pre-planned and executed methodically. The entire area was cordoned off, the electricians took away electricity metre boxes, the women were driven from their homes without an opportunity to collect personal belongings and the bulldozers pulled-in and demolished all of the 300 commercial and residential permanent structures that had been on the site for more than ten years. Residents admit that they had received eviction notices, but that these notices had been received in 1991, 5 years prior to the actual eviction. Eviction Watch discovered that those living at Ishwar Nagar had no reason to believe that their settlement was “illegal” as they had been paying taxes and electricity bills to the government regularly and the owners of commercial establishments had obtained government approved licenses to operate those establishments.81 • According to Habitat International Coalition, India recently witnessed one of the most brutal violations of housing rights in recent times. In mid-June 1997 an estimated 65,000 dwellers from Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Bhambrekar Nagar, in Kandivli (West) were violently evicted from their homes and rendered homeless. Approximately 15 BMC bulldozers, 150 police officers and 25-30 officials of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) were involved in the week long demolition of the approximately 8,000 hutments in the area. Despite the fact that many of the dwellers had been living on this site for near 20 years, most dwellers were not given notice of the eviction and none were provided with an opportunity to collect their personal belongings. Nothing was spared destruction as hutments (houses and small shops), personal property and the materials for protection from the monsoon rains were all bulldozed. Many were beaten by those carrying out the eviction and 16 people were arrested for pelting stones at police officers to defend their homes against demolition. With nowhere to go and without any materials to reconstruct their homes, families and individuals sought refuge from the rain under plastic sheets on the side of the road. Without adequate housing and food, 2 infants and 3 children died of pneumonia and malnutrition the week following the eviction. This eviction, carried out during heavy rains was in direct contravention of the Supreme Court’s directive that no one shall be rendered homeless during the monsoon.82 Originally officials would only agree to the provision of alternate accommodation to those whose names were registered on the electoral list as of 1 January 1997. NGOs have since negotiated with officials to ensure that all those with voter identity cards and those who are particularly vulnerable be provided with alternate accommodation.

Calcutta • In November 1994 the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) demolished 13 “illegally” constructed houses on Topsia Road (South) in East Calcutta. According to the Deputy Municipal Commissioner, these houses had been built on land which ostensibly belonged to the CMC. On the morning of the demolition the residents attempted to prevent the demolition but additional police personnel were deployed and the eviction proceeded.83

80 81 82 83

ACHR, supra note 3 and YUVA (1996) Footnotes of a City: Housing Situation and Policy Alternatives for Pavement Dwellers.

ACHR, (1997) Demolitions in Ishwar Nagar, Navi Mumbai: A Report by Eviction Watch.

Express News Service, “No raincheck: BMC razes Kandivli Slums” Indian Express (14 June 1997).

Unnayan (1996) Evictions: Habitat I to Habitat II at 185.

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• According to news reports, 29 families (200 people) who had been living for many years on a plot of land belonging to the West Bengal Relief and Rehabilitation Department at Debipur Gurguria in the Kultali Thana area of South 24 - Parganas were evicted from their homes in January, 1995. As a result these dwellers were rendered homeless and spent many nights in the open air in winter.84 • On 13 April 1995 the West Bengal government demolished nearly 150 roadside stalls and shanties over a four kilometre stretch on the Eastern Bypass in the Tiljala area to widen the road as a part of the megacity plan. All structures were bulldozed. Little notice was provided to those affected and no alternate accommodation or relocation sites for shops were offered to the evictees. The day-long demolition was carried out by the CMC and Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) staff with the assistance of the police who carried tear gas shells in case of active resistance from residents.85 • More than 250 shanties alongside the No. 4 Bridge in the Park Circus area in East Calcutta were razed in late November 1995 by the police and civic authorities so that the bridge could be widened to ease traffic congestion in the area. City beautification was also cited as a reason for the demolition. As a result, nearly 1,200 people were rendered homeless. Some of those affected had lived in the shanty for more than 20 years. The eviction happened suddenly and without notice. At approximately 6 a.m. bulldozers were brought into the shanty and began to pull down the structures. Many of the dwellers caught completely unawares, were awoken by the sound of the labourers carrying out the evictions and were forced to vacate their hutments immediately, without an opportunity to collect their personal property. Those who attempted to retrieve their belongings were taken to the police station and beaten, some women were even charged. Many of the evictees relocated to the pavements of Dilkhusha Street, close to the demolition site, though police gave the slum dwellers an ultimatum to vacate the pavements or risk their demolition of the newly constructed makeshift structures. Compensation to the evictees has not been provided.86 • On 17 December 1995 about 400 shanties from KK Thakur Street to the Armenian Ghat were demolished and more than 1,000 dwellers forcibly evicted and rendered homeless by the Calcutta police in conjunction with the Port Trust authorities.87

New Delhi • In October 1994 more than 160 families (250 people) living in flats in Jahangirpuri were rendered homeless as a result of forced eviction. Hundreds of police attended the eviction and literally threw people along with their personal belongings out of their homes. Government officials claim that only those who were “illegally” occupying the flats were evicted. The evictees were not provided with alternate accommodation or compensation for damaged property.88 • In early January 1996 many jhuggi dwellers were evicted from their homes to clean-up the 27 kilometre road from Delhi to Ghaziabad to give the area a “clean” look for the Prime Minister’s scheduled visit.89 CESCR: Yes (1979) Const: No 84 85 86 87 88 89

36

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

at 191 - 192. at 193. at 196, 199 - 200. at 182 - 184. at 207.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

INDONESIA Forced evictions persist at an alarming rate in Indonesia, particularly in Jakarta where it has been estimated that, on average, two communities are evicted each month and that 40% of all households in Jakarta were squatter households and thus extremely vulnerable to eviction.90 This vulnerability has increased with the onset of the severe economic and political crisis in the country. Wardah Hafidz of the Jelambar Baru Urban Poor Consortium offers insight into why this gross violation of human rights persists in Indonesia. First, the government adheres to a Western development paradigm where the metropolitan city is defined as clean, orderly, structured for the automobile and attractive to investors. As squatter settlements and slums by their very nature do not complement this paradigm or vision, evictions are deemed necessary. Second, land and houses in the city are regarded as commodities rather then necessities to fulfill basic needs. This trend has made it nearly impossible for the poor to own land, hence the growth of informal shelter in urban areas and their resultant eviction from this land to make room for urban renewal programs to build expensive houses and buildings. Third, the interests and concerns of the poor and landless are ignored by government and evictions by developers are in this way supported by the government.

• According to the Institut Sosial Jakarta, each month about five evictions occur among the city’s estimated 3 million squatters. In most cases, the evicted families are not relocated. Government suppression under the Internal Security Act is said to include burning out poor communities in broad daylight.

Laws have been introduced which make it virtually impossible for people’s organizations to obtain legal recognition. The government does have a low-cost housing programme, but only those in regular employment can qualify for it. Only 19% of the city’s entire population have clear land titles.91 • In 1994 approximately 600 military men raided Bendungan Hilir (Benhil) in Central Jakarta, evicting 300 people from their homes at dawn. The community resided in the most expensive and prestigious business district in Jakarta. Before the raid, arson was employed. After the evictions, the municipality passed a regulation preventing the evictees from rebuilding their houses or any other structures on the ruins. When the evictees refused to leave without compensation, the government moved in with its military forces and guns, tear gas and tanks to break the resistance.92 • In 1995 hundreds of inhabitants of Kedoya Utara, Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta were evicted after their houses had been bulldozed ostensibly because they were illegally established on a river bank.

However, information from reliable sources in the region indicate that the main reason for the eviction was to placate residents in the neighbouring rich housing complex who believed that the poor community made their neighbourhood unsafe.93 The residents appealed to Parliament, invited the media to publicize their demands and concerns, threw stones at the municipality demolition squad and even attempted to invoke supernatural powers to defeat the demolition squad but all efforts were to no avail.

In fact, their protests ultimately resulted in the government refusing to offer the resident any resettlement support except a temporary shelter in the nursing home commonly used to house beggars forced off the street by police.94 • In 1996 thousands were evicted from Dadap, a fisher community, due to an international air show that took place at the nearby Jakarta international airport in June.

90 91 92 93 94

United Nations Development Programm, (1997) Cities and Citizens: The AP2000 Experience at 21.

ACHR, supra note 53.

ACHR, supra note 3 at 28.

Ibid.

Ibid.

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• The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights has reported that an astounding 108,873 households were evicted in Indonesia between January 1996 and December 1997, meaning that more than 500,000 persons faced forced evictions during this period.95 CESCR: No Const: No

IRAN There are said to be official Iranian plans to destroy all Kurdish villages within 20 kilometres of the border with Iraq, in accordance with the 1975 agreement with that country. The following incidents would seem to confirm the existence of such plans: • In August 1994, 17 villages in Sardasht region, which borders on Iraq, were evacuated on the orders of the region’s governor.

• In October 1994, the inhabitants of six villages in Piranshahr region were also ordered out.

• On 6 November 1995, the governor of Sardasht ordered the inhabitants of Dolatu, north-west of Sardasht town, to leave their village. They refused to obey and called on regional and international authorities to have the order rescinded. The authorities responded by arresting a number of villagers and ordering the evacuation of the settlement within 10 days.96 CESCR: Yes (1976) Const: Yes (arts. 20 and 31)

ISRAEL & THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Palestinians residing inside Israel, and those within the still Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories and, to a lesser degree, those inside autonomous Palestine continue to be subject to forced evictions, predominantly at the hands of Israeli officials. Most of these evictions occur as part of the Israeli government’s attempt to Judaize as much of the region as possible by reducing or entirely eliminating an Arab Palestinian presence. In East Jerusalem, evictions are carried out with a view to changing the ethnic composition, physical character, boundaries and ultimately the legal status of Jerusalem. The dominant means by which the State oppresses the 850,000 Arab citizens living inside Israel and the Palestinians living in the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories and East Jerusalem include: the confiscation and expropriation of lands, settlement expansion, house demolition, land expropriation for “security” reasons and, particular to East Jerusalem, the revocation of residency rights and the occupation by settlers of Palestinian houses.

A summary of evictions from each of the following distinct areas is provided: East Jerusalem and the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Unrecognized Villages in Israel and Gaza.

East Jerusalem and the Israeli occupied Palestinian Territories It is now well documented that Israeli local and national governments are rapidly implementing a policy to ensure the elimination of an Arab Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem as a means of creating facts

95 96

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Eviction Watch Asia (1998) Forced Evictions and Housing Right Abuses in Asia: Second Report 1996-1997 (Kenneth Fernandez, ed.), City Press, Karachi, p. 68.

Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) as cited by Netherlands Kurdistan Society (SNK, (1994) October and (1995) December Koerdistan Koerier.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

on the ground to support Israel’s claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem “whole and united”. There are various means by which Palestinians are being evicted from their homes and their land in these two regions including: (I) land expropriation and the related expansion of settlements, (ii) house demolition and sealings for security reasons, for allegedly defying administrative zoning laws or for unlicensed structure (building without a permit), (iii) the revocation of residency rights (specifically in East Jerusalem) and (iv) Jewish settler takeovers of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem.

The combination of these policies makes it impossible for Palestinians to find “legal” land or areas on which they can build or extend their existing homes. In turn, too frustrated to continue to bear overcrowded and highly taxed living conditions and unable to obtain building permits from Israeli authorities, many Palestinians resort to building “illegal” extensions to existing structures and “illegal” new homes. Subsequently, on the pretext that the these homes were built without permits, they are simply destroyed by municipal bulldozers.97 According to the Palestine Human Rights Information Center (PHRIC), between January 1994 and March 1997 at least 252 families (close to 2,000 people) in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territories were forcibly evicted from their homes as a result of house demolition or house sealings.98 During the same period PHRIC reports that 36,711 dunums99 of Palestinian land in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and East Jerusalem have been confiscated since 1994 which in turn has forced many Palestinians from their homes as their means of subsistence - agricultural land - has been seized.100 Some examples of these various forms of forced eviction experienced by Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories are illustrative: House Demolition and Settlement Expansion

• The Palestine Housing Rights Movement reported that on 17 September 1996 a Palestinian home was demolished in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City because the family had added an illegal addition to the second floor of the home.101 • In late January, 1997 an Israeli Ministerial Committee headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu took a series of decisions to continue Jewish settlement expansion in East Jerusalem. The plans entailed construction of new roads, schools, police stations, and hotels in various settlements located in the occupied city. This decision has resulted in the demolition of several Palestinian homes, with houses located near settler by-pass roads particularly targeted. For example, on 12 February 1997, five houses and a cistern were demolished and a considerable amount of agricultural land was expropriated by Israeli officials in the Hebron area. This came on the heels of the demolition of two houses, one in Jabbah village near Hebron, the other near by-pass road number 60 in el Khader village. The houses were ostensibly destroyed for having no permit, however, residents contend that their houses were demolished in order

97 98

Rose-Marie Barbeau, “No Room Left to Build” (1997) April Palestine Report.

Palestine Human Rights Information Center (PHRIC) (1997) March Israeli Human Rights Violations Against Palestinians: Summary Data Totals, December 1987 - March 1997.

99 1 dunum = 1/4 acre (approximately).

100 B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reports that since 1967 slightly more than one-third of the land in East Jerusalem had been expropriated by Israeli authorities. The majority of expropriated land was privately owned by Arabs. The following neighbourhoods were built, at the Israeli government’s initiative, on expropriated land: Giv’at Shappira (French Hill), Ramot Eshkol, Neve Ya’aqov, Ma’alot Dafna, Ramot (Ramot Allon), East Talpiyot, Gilo, Giv’at ha-Mivtar, Pisgat Ze’ev and most recently, Shu’afat Ridge and Har Homah. By February of 1995, about 38,500 housing units had been built for Israeli and Jewish settlers. At the same time, not one housing unit was built for the Palestinian population. See: B’Tselem, (1997) A Policy of Discrimination: Land Expropriation, Planning and Building in East Jerusalem at 55 - 59.

101 PHRIC, (1996) November Update on the Living Conditions for Palestinians in East Jerusalem presented to the 15th session of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

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to make way for the widening of the settler’s by-pass road which connects two Jewish settlements: Kfar Etzion and Beit Shemesh.102 • In February 1997, the Israeli government decided to commence the construction of 2,500 housing units on confiscated land on Mount Abu Ghneim (“Har Homa”) for Jewish settlers. Mount Abu Ghneim is part of the 61.2% of the Bethlehem district that has been confiscated by Israel between 1967-96. Construction of the settlement began on 18 March 1997. The lands on which the settlement will be built were confiscated from Palestinian residents of Beit Sahour, Bethlehem.

• Also in February, Israeli soldiers surrounded a house on the outskirts of Hebron and ordered the occupants to vacate the premises immediately. Without warning and without providing the family with an opportunity to remove their possessions, the Israeli troops demolished the house while many of the family members watched on. None of the male members of the family were at home when it was demolished, as a result, furniture and appliances were left inside and destroyed. The house was a single structure divided into units, housing three generations of the family (approximately 45 people). Beneath the house is a cave which was originally used by the family as shelter for livestock. The Israeli officials bulldozed the ruins of the house into the cave so that the family could not reside there. The operation took a total of four hours. With nowhere to go, the family lived in the open for several days and then ultimately decided to seek shelter and so removed the rubble from the cave.103 • 19 Palestinian houses were demolished in August 1997 in Occupied East Jerusalem on the pretext that they were built without a license. This is the highest figure of house demolition in East Jerusalem in a one month period, since 1967 when the Israeli authorities razed the Moghrabi Quarter (now called the Jewish Quarter) to make way for the Wailing Wall.104 • The Jahalin bedouins located just outside of Jerusalem in the West Bank have been particularly targeted for eviction. Just near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, a few kilometres southeast of Jerusalem, the tents and shacks of the Jahalin Bedouin encampment house some 40 families (about 300 people). As the Israeli government is working feverishly to expand the Jewish population in all parts of metropolitan Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumin, situated at the eastern tip of the projected “Greater Jerusalem” and surrounding areas are of great strategic importance. In turn, the Jahalin have been first in line for forced eviction. In October 1994, one resident, Arheil Abu Ghalia, saved his shack by lying in the path of a bulldozer. On 14 November 1994, police and soldiers descended on the encampment, arresting him and six others. When Turta Abu Ghalia, a 70-year-old grandmother with a heart condition, refused to show her identity card, one of the police officers kicked her and tried to drag her from her tent. In 1996 the Israeli Defense Minister, Yitzhaq Mordechai, approved “Plan E1” to construct even more settlements around Ma’aleh Adumim on 12,443 dunums of confiscated land east of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement. The plans are designed to bring in 20,000 settlers on sites along the JerusalemJericho road linking Pisgat Ze’ev settlement with Ma’aleh Adumim. The designated area was confiscated from 6 Palestinian villages: Issawiyeh, Eizariyeh, Abu Dis, Anata, Tur and Ze’ayyem. On May 28, 1996 the Israeli High Court of Justice approved the eviction of the 3,000 member Jahalin Bedouin tribe, in order to clear the area for Jewish settlers and Plan E1. President of the High Court, Aaron Barak, ruled that the Jahalin must leave within three months with a choice of relocating to a site near the Jerusalem garbage dump, or compensation (the amount not specified). Without any ban on construction near the Jahalin tent-houses, the heavy building - expected to start immediately following court’s decision - result102 E-mail from LAW (15 February 1997).

103 Palestinian Human Rights Monitor, (1997) April Israeli Demolitions Continue: Family of 45 Forced to Live in a Cave at 4.

104 Palestine Housing Rights Movement (PHRM) and HIC, (3 December 1997) Statement presented to 17th session of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

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ed in effectively evicting the Jahalin before the end of the three month period.105 As a result, the Jahalin bedouins continue to face eviction well into 1998. In January, some of the families who had not yet left their land were evicted and their homes destroyed, leaving 33 Bedouin families homeless. Approximately 100 Israeli soldiers and police bulldozed the entire encampment site in a highly organized operation under helicopter surveillance. Nearly 200 people were injured. The Israeli government has not offered an alternative settlement site to the completely inadequate one existing now, which is no more than 500 metres from a garbage dump (according to Israeli law, the minimum distance must be 2000 metres).

Additionally, the site lacks infrastructure and provides less than 500 square metres of land per family for housing, living and sheep flocks. No compensation has been offered the affected families.106 These evictions continued throughout the year, with 111 Jahalin Bedouin families (or more than 600 people) losing their homes as a result of forced eviction between August and November 1997. The Jahalin bedouins have filed a petition with the Supreme Court for an adequate housing project but no response has been issued.107 Jewish Settler Takeovers of Palestinian Houses in East Jerusalem

• In March 1997 Jewish settlers seized and occupied a Palestinian house in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan.108 • On 14 September 1997 a group of settler families supported by the Jewish-American millionaire, Irwin Moskowitz, moved into a Palestinian house in Ras el-Amud. Armed settlers also broke into a neighbouring Palestinian owned bus company parking lot and evicted the Palestinian staff at gun point.109 • In late November 1997 the Israeli Police seized a house belonging to the Tirhi family in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and turned it into a guard post on the pretext of protecting the settler-religious school in the area.110 Revocation of Residency Rights in East Jerusalem

Israeli authorities continue to confiscate Palestinian identity cards for Jerusalem, without which Palestinians can be forced to leave their homes in East Jerusalem with very little notice, normally not more than 15 days. Often identity cards are confiscated without an interview or investigation and there is no right of appeal once the authorities decide to revoke the identity card. Identity cards are confiscated by authorities under the pretext that the individual or family under examination has not adequately proved that their “centre of life” is in Jerusalem. The “centre of life” standard is so high that even those who have never left the city would have difficulty meeting the requirements. For example, Palestinians who work in the city, attend city schools and receive medical treatment there, have had their Jerusalem ID cards revoked. This policy has the potential to affect all Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and directly affects those living and studying abroad.111 • The Alternative Information Centre based in Jerusalem reports that according to the Israeli Interior Ministry, a total of 853 Palestinian families have already had their ID cards confiscated (689 in 1996 and 164 to date in 1997). To implement this confiscation policy, Israeli authorities have conducted residency inspections on Palestinian homes and tents in East Jerusalem including neighbourhoods within the Old 105 106 107 108

FIAN, Urgent Action 1/97 at 11.

Ibid.

Ibid.

PHRM, (1997) Update on the Living Conditions for Palestinians in East Jerusalem submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16th session.

109 Ibid.

110 Ibid.

111 Hamoked and B’Tselem, (1997) The Quiet Deportation: Revocation of Residency of East Jerusalem Palestinians at 14 - 22.

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City (Aqbat al-Saraya, Aqbet al-Khaldiyyeh) and areas adjacent to the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem (Jabal Mukabber, Silwan, Ras el-Amud, Wad Qaddum). Accompanied by Israeli border guards, Israeli officials check for resident identity cards and ask families specific questions regarding where they sleep and where their children play to determine whether Jerusalem is their “centre of life”.112 At the same time, Israeli authorities have refused to register approximately 10,000 Palestinian children on their mother’s Jerusalem identity card. Consequently, not all children of one family are considered Jerusalem residents by the Interior Ministry. In turn, children can be separated from their families, or entire families may be forced to move outside of Jerusalem to remain united.113

Unrecognized Villages in Israel Today, Palestinian citizens of Israel comprise approximately 18% of the total population in Israel.

Formerly a majority, the Palestinians now living in Israel represent the remaining members of the Arab community of Palestine which was devastated by the mass exodus of the population during and after the war of 1948. In 1948 the State of Israel was formally declared. Successive Israeli governments have refused to treat the Palestinians citizens of Israel equally with its Jewish citizens or to recognize them as a national minority, a fact reflected in official Israeli statistics pertaining to Palestinian land ownership in Israel which show that, whereas 95% of Arab Palestinians were land-owners before the State of Israel was created in 1948, only 3% of land in modern Israel is currently owned by Arabs. In this region, land has been confiscated on various pretexts and tens of thousands of Arabs have been displaced and concentrated in “official” townships. In fact, Israeli governments have continuously treated the Arab Palestinian community as a hostile element in the context of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Among the Palestinian minority in Israel, the worst housing and living conditions are suffered by those who live in the “unrecognized villages”.114 The unrecognized villages constitute hundreds of communities which vary in size and population, and are scattered throughout Israel, north (Galilee) and south (Negev). These areas are known as “unrecognized villages” because they do not exist officially, having been excluded from official plans and maps of Israel. The Israeli planning authorities refuse to incorporate the villages into planning schemes in order to minimize the number of Palestinian towns and villages, and to put as much land as possible at the disposal of the Jewish community.

All of the unrecognized villages suffer from a lack of basic services including water, electricity, and telephone lines. The Planning and Building law classifies all of the lands on which the unrecognized Arab villages are situated as agricultural lands. This classification, which prohibits the building of or the existence of building structures, also automatically renders the houses in the unrecognized villages “illegal”, even those built prior to the enactment of the Law and before the creation of the State of Israel. The Planning and Building Law legislates one solution for illegal houses: evacuation and demolition.

In 1985 the Israeli government founded the Markovitz Committee to deal with the problem of “illegal building” in the Arab sector overall. The Markovitz Committee Report recommended that a total of 11,180 “unlicensed houses” in the Arab sector should be demolished as soon as possible and that government bodies such as the Planning and Building Department be vested with the authority to demolish “grey houses”, that is, those which could not be maintained, repaired, inherited or connected with essential networks such as water, electricity and transportation. The Markovitz Committee Report was

112 PHRM, supra note 108.

113 Ibid.

114 The Arab Coordinating Committee on Housing Rights (ACCHR), (April 1996) Housing for All? Submitted to the 14th session UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at 13.

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approved by the Israeli government and many demolitions were executed.115 These demolitions continue until today.

• According to the Association of Forty, between 1988 - 1996 approximately 2,100 houses were demolished in the Arab villages under the pretext that they were unlicensed.116 The problem of house demolition and evictions is particularly acute for Bedouins living in unrecognized villages in the Negev. The Bedouin tribes have inhabited and cultivated the Negev desert region for centuries where they raised livestock and cultivated grain. These activities required seasonal migration to find water and pasture. Each tribe possessed its own territory, and the limited resources found within the territory, such as water, pasture, and farmland belonged solely to the tribe which possessed it. To the Bedouin, land represents their ability to maintain economic self-sufficiency and indicates the groups’ identity. This territorial link is crucial for the survival of the Bedouin heritage as an indigenous peoples.

• Currently more than 135,000 Bedouin Arabs reside in Israel, of which 85,000 - 90,000 live in the Negev. The Bedouin Arabs constitute approximately 11% of the Arab minority within Israel. Of those living in the Negev, nearly 50,000 live in unrecognized villages where all of the buildings are considered illegal and hence are slated for demolition. Israeli government policies of land expropriation, forced sedentarization and centralization, house demolitions, and the denial of basic services characterize the ways in which the state has separated the Bedouin from their lands and destroyed their traditional patterns of life.117 The Israeli authorities continue to arbitrarily employ Ottoman, British and newly enacted Israeli laws to expropriate land from the bedouins and house demolition is a prominent means by which land is expropriated. The manner in which house demolition is carried out in the Negev is particularly brutal. Most often, the bedouin are expected to destroy their own homes, however if the owners do not oblige, Israeli authorities will demolish the homes without notice, leaving the residents suddenly homeless. To add insult to injury, after the forced eviction has been carried out, the authorities require home owners to pay for the costs associated with the demolition. This can create situations of double or triple jeopardy. For example, on at least one occasion, several house owners refused to demolish their own homes. In turn, their homes were demolished by Israeli officials, and the home owners were committed to trial and imprisoned for periods ranging from six months to a year for not obeying the demolition order. High fines were also levied against the house owners, to cover the government’s expenses incurred to carry-out the eviction.118 As it stands, to avoid the total destruction of their homes, many of the Bedouin have constructed their homes on wheels and others are currently residing in buses, so that their homes can be wheeled or driven away in the face of demolition by a bulldozer and Israeli military and police. Unfortunately, these efforts have not saved the Bedouin from being forcibly evicted from their homes as the Israeli officials have demolished buses as well as some houses on wheels.

Gaza • On 22 May 1997 nine houses in Gaza were destroyed by the Gaza Municipality in breach of a 4 May 1997 ruling by the Palestinian High Court of Justice. Three bulldozers from the Gaza municipality, accompanied by Palestinian security forces were employed. Despite these violations of human rights, the evicted families have received no compensation and no alternative housing.119 CESCR: Israel: Yes (1992); Occupied countries such as Palestine cannot ratify treaties Const: No 115 116 117 118 119

Ibid. at 30 - 35.

The Association of Forty, Memorandum on the Recognition of the Arab Unrecognized Villages (1997) at 13.

ACCHR, supra note 114 at 43.

The Association of Forty, supra note 116, at 13.

Press Release, E-mail from Palestine Centre for Human Rights (29 May 1997).

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JAPAN • Many evictions have occurred in Kobe in the aftermath of the Great Hanshin Earthquake of February 1995. Following the earthquake many residents of Kobe were forced to live in “waiting centres”, temporary shelters located in schools and community centres.120 Since 1995 the government has consistently closed waiting centres whilst people were still residing in them, as a means of returning the buildings to their original uses. As a result, at least 5,774 people were forcibly evicted from these waiting centres. In some instances, judicial eviction orders were sought to remove people from waiting centres, even when those people had nowhere else to go. For example, an elderly woman and her daughter, who were living in a classroom, could not accept the government’s proposed relocation site as it was in a mountainous region and thus difficult for the older woman to navigate and was too far from a hospital and her daughter’s place of work. A petition for eviction was filed against her and was ordered by the court, though the woman and her daughter left the waiting centre prior to the arrival of the officer who would have evicted them.121 • On 24 January 1996 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government evicted approximately 200 homeless people who were living in cardboard boxes on the pavement at Shinjuku Railway Station. 200 city officials, 250 policemen and 400 specifically recruited guards were mobilized for the eviction. They dismantled barricades, dragged the dwellers out of their make-shift homes, removed evictees’ supporters who were “sitting-in” to resist the eviction and threw away the evictees’ cardboard tents and mats. The eviction was ostensibly carried out so that the government could proceed to construct a 1.3 billion yen “moving footpath” to transport pedestrians between the new City Hall and the Shinjuku station. Critics suggest that the walkway project actually served as a simple means of removing homeless persons from occupying public space in a prestigious area of Tokyo. The evictees were urged to move to a temporary shelter provided by the Metropolitan government located in a storehouse on a reclaimed island in Tokyo connected to the city via a single bridge. Only about 40 of the 200 evictees volunteered to move to the island, most feared that once on the island the government would restrict access to the city and hence prevent them from earning a livelihood. Those who moved to the temporary shelter were only permitted to stay until the end of March 1996 after which the government offered no plan or assistance.122 Since then more homeless men and women have moved back to the site and reconstructed their cardboard homes.

• In Nagoya, a city of 2 million, there are at least 600 homeless people living on the pavement or in parks in cardboard tents. The numbers of homeless have been on the rise as the economy remains depressed and unemployment rates increase. On 27 August 1997, 30 homeless people who were residing in “Adventure Plaza” in Wakamiya-Odori Park, Nagoya were forcibly evicted. The City claimed that it wanted to redevelop the area and thus it was necessary to tear down the playground structures on which residents had sought shelter. Residents believe, however, that the eviction was part of the municipal government’s plan to evict all homeless people from Nagoya before the World Exposition 2005.123 CESCR: Yes (1979) Const: No (However, the Constitution does include art. 25, the right to a minimum standard of living).

120 These and other housing rights violations are outlined in the report prepared by COHRE on a fact-finding mission to Kobe entitled Still Waiting: Housing Rights Violations in a Land of Plenty; The Kobe Earthquake and Beyond (1996), Habitat International Coalition.

121 Facsimile from Katsuyuki Kumano (human rights lawyer) (15 August 1997).

122 Letter from Denis Murphy, Eviction Watch Asia.

123 E-mail from ACHR (September 1997).

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Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

KENYA According to Kenya’s National Council of NGOs, the unjust allocation of land has created a situation in which 55% of Nairobi’s residents live in deplorable conditions on 1% of the capital’s land area.

That some powerful Kenyans do not want that situation to improve is illustrated by the fire-bombing, on 15 March 1995, of offices housing two NGOs, the Legal Advice Centre, Kituo Cha Sheria, and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. In the attack - the sixth on Mombasa, 9/6/’97 © Nation the offices in only three weeks - two security guards were shot and wounded in the legs. Since its foundation in 1973, the Legal Advice Centre has helped thousands of poor Kenyans facing problems including violations of their housing rights and forced evictions. The following are some recent examples: • On 2 November 1994, in Nairobi’s industrial area, groups of police officers and young men kicked in doors of tin shanties in Kingston village, Mukuru, threatened and mishandled residents and told them to leave with their belongings or risk having everything they owned bulldozed. A few days later, only a shell remained of what had been a relatively peaceful and secure community of 2,000 people. The Standard newspaper reported that in all 6,000 villagers were evicted from the Mukuru Kingston area that week. Many of the victims lost property worth thousands of Kenyan shillings. Kingston village had come into being four years earlier, the first residents moving onto the land after a local government official starting “selling plots” and assuring people they could safely build there. In August 1993, however, the government sold a plot comprising most of the village to a Nairobi businessman, Mr Francis Mugo Mwoya, for 220,000 Kenyan shillings, well below the market value. Within a few months, he had “persuaded” local government officials to evict the residents, whom he described, in an affidavit filed with the Kenyan court, as “squatters” causing him “great financial loss and difficulty”. Following the November evictions, many of the families rebuilt their homes. In December, police tried to bulldoze the site again, but a group of Kingston residents obtained a High Court injunction halting their eviction, pending a definite ruling by the same court. The Legal Advice Centre, representing the residents, argued that under the Government Land Act, the government was obliged to grant them a court hearing before eviction, but that no such hearing had been given. Advocates for the Attorney General’s Office argued that no such right was provided for in the statute and that, under the Registration of Titles Act, the owner had the right to evict trespassers. On 13 February 1995, the High Court denied the residents’ application clearing the way for the eviction of the remaining 20 or so families. A request for a twoweek stay of eviction was also rejected. Nonetheless, a group of residents agreed to fight on and the Legal Advice Centre indicated it would file an appeal. Two weeks later, police and hired men demolished all of Kingston’s remaining houses. Having been warned that any homes rebuilt again would immediately be torched, the former residents sought shelter in nearby communities and at a neighbourhood primary school. Social workers then started trying to find alternative accommodation for the families.124

124 National Council of NGOs, (1995) December Pamphlet No. 1: Demolition of Kingston; Kenya Episcopal Conference and Gregory Darr “Death of a Village” Mwananchi [magazine] (1995); The Standard 4 November 1994.

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• In the Eastlands area of the capital, on 19 April 1995, about 80 armed Nairobi City askaris with 20 policemen, completely demolished the homes of over 60 families (200 people, more than half of them children) in Ngomongo village, Korogocho. The residents left in a disciplined, organized and peaceful manner, despite extreme provocation by the armed men. The City Council had settled the families in Ngomongo in 1972, following their eviction from Gathecha. On 22 February 1995, the Council served written notice giving the dwellers two weeks to vacate Ngomongo which had been deemed, “a site required for development”, ostensibly for the expansion of a neighbouring primary school. The residents, who were prepared to move if alternative accommodation was provided, formed a protest committee and sought legal advice. Negotiations with the area chief as well as district and city officials delayed but could not stop the eviction. After the demolition, Kenya’s National Council of NGOs appealed to the authorities to re-house the displaced citizens and to uphold official Kenyan policy on housing and, in particular, children’s rights to shelter. Despite these efforts, the Ngomongo victims were offered no alternative accommodation or site to settle, despite an official undertaking that they would be relocated.125 • On 10 May 1995, without warning, a Kenya Railway Corporation bulldozer demolished about 10 houses in Agare village, also in Nairobi’s Eastlands area. This informal settlement, established on Corporation land in the 1950s predominantly by relatives of railway workers, by 1995 housed approximately 4,000 residents. Angry villagers set fire to the invading bulldozer, but some were arrested and then jailed for arson. Those who remained on the land were greeted by another bulldozer on 14 May 1995 and every structure in sight was demolished. Property and possessions were crushed and residents were abused and beaten by police and corporation watchmen. Those who could not find temporary accommodation elsewhere sought refuge in a nearby school playground, near the railway line or at a neighbouring City Council estate. Many men, women and children were compelled to sleep outside in the cold. A week later, corporation watchmen raided the village again, beating, injuring and raping residents. Eight people were arrested and charged with trespassing. All attempts by Agare residents to seek official assistance or to petition for reallocation were in vain. Workshops have since been organized for the victims of the evictions, a welfare society has been established and the members have agreed to join forces and try to buy land elsewhere in the Nairobi area.126 UPDATE: COHRE’s Global Survey on Forced Eviction No. 6, reported that since late 1991 a total of at least 300,000 Kenyans, mostly smallholders and their families, had been forcibly evicted or had fled in fear from their lands in various parts of the country. In most cases, the government appeared either to have actively promoted or, at best, to have done little to stop these ethnically-oriented purges. Few if any of the victims have been properly re-housed. The Sunday Nation of 30 October 1994, reported that over 10,000 people who had fled from Olenguruone, Chapakundi, Korofa and Saosa areas at the height of the ethnic clashes still had not returned to their lands. Of the limited numbers of people who had returned, most were Kalenjin, with some Kisii as well. Kikuyus were staying away as they felt their security could not be guaranteed.

The following is illustrative of the aftermath of ethnic clashes: • After serious ethnic clashes between Kalenjins and Kikuyus, in September 1993, the Burnt Forest area of Uasin Gishu district, Rift Valley province was declared a security zone by the government, a move heavily criticized by some international organizations. As a result of this status, uniformed and plainclothes security personnel poured into the area. In April 1994, a fresh outbreak of ethnic violence in 125 National Council of NGOs, (1996) April - May Pamphlet No. 3: Evictions in Ngomongo; East African Standard (20 April 1995).

126 National Council of NGOs (February 1996) Pamphlet No. 2: Evictions in Agare.

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Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

Burnt Forest left at least 12 people dead and hundreds seriously wounded. Property worth millions of Kenyan shillings was destroyed, including at least 65 homes. Families fled to Nakuru, Naivasha, Eldoret and other nearby urban centres. With politicians locked in dispute over the cause of the new violence, a strict nighttime curfew was imposed, a firearms amnesty announced and all weapons were banned.

Months later, with 1994 drawing to a close, Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Ishmael Chelang’a declared that the ethnic clashes were over and District Officers issued ultimatums to the displaced victims. Some 180 families who were still camping at Burnt Forest Catholic Church and some 120 families around the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) Centre in Eldoret were given one week to return to their farms or be thrown out by police. Ultimately, the 161 families from Burnt Forest Catholic Church were saved from another forcible eviction as the UNDP and the NCCK moved the families to nearby Kamuyu, Ruruini, Kondoo, Loriani and Geiti before the expiration of the imposed deadline.127 • In 1993, an estimated 30,000 people, mostly Kikuyu but also some Maasai, fled from the area of Enoosupukia, Narok district. In July of that year, the Local Government Minister and MP for Narok North, William ole Ntimama - a Maasai - had warned that “aliens” would have to move out of the area as it was a water catchment and local Maasai pastoralists were short of water. The settlers refused to leave, saying they had documents proving that they had bought or leased land there. In October, raiding Maasai warriors speared 30 settlers to death, triggering the mass exodus. By January 1994, around 10,000 of the ‘internal refugees’ were encamped in Maela, Nakuru district, with organizations including the Catholic Church, the Red Cross and the UNDP trying to alleviate the appalling health, nutrition and housing situation. On 5 January, security personnel sealed off the Maela camp and ordered the inmates to leave. They refused. On 8 January, it was reported that the Nakuru District Administration had banned all non-residents, including concerned aid workers, politicians and journalists, from the area.

In the ensuing months, Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Ishmael Chelang’a repeatedly pledged that the displaced people would be resettled. On 30 September 1994, President Moi, who was said to have been “touched” by the refugees’ plight, decreed that all “genuine” families should be rehabilitated.

With the government and the UNDP supposedly cooperating in a project with a budget of 1.4 billion Kenyan shillings aimed at helping the quarter-of-a-million displaced residents of Rift Valley and Western provinces, there was hope that those from Enoosupukia would be resettled by Christmas 1994. The Christmas present did not materialize. Instead, on 23 December, government officials and police “vetted” the Maela camp inmates and then roughly herded an estimated 7,000 of them into trucks and other vehicles, transporting them to locations in Central Province and Ngong. Some 700 refugees, including women, children and elderly people, were taken to Kirigiti Stadium outside Kiambu town in Kiambaa district; at least 350 were “dumped” in Ndaragwa and Ol Kalau, Nyandarua district; others were moved to unknown destinations. On 28 December, government officials started vetting those in Kirigiti Stadium, an exercise widely criticized as “intimidation”. On 4 January 1995, police forcibly evicted all the Enoosupukia victims from the improvised camps in Kirigiti Stadium and Ndaragwa and Ol Kalau. This chaotic raid left scores of women injured and four children missing. Although the refugees were officially said to have been returned to their “presumed ancestral homes”, the day after, over 350 of them were residing at the two Catholic churches in Kiambu. Some 300 others were reportedly being held under tight security at Tumaini National Youth Service Camp near Ol Kalau, while about 45 were said to have found refuge in the town. On 6 January, in yet another forced eviction led by Kenyan government officials, the 109 families camped outside the Kiambu churches were transported to various locations. Eventually, amid a storm of domestic and international protest, the government announced that

127 The Standard, The Standard On Sunday, The Daily Nation and Sunday Nation (October 1994 to January 1995).

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the “genuine victims” - only 200 families - had been settled on public land in Moi Ndabi Scheme, Nakuru district.128 POSTSCRIPT: In July 1995, it was reported that the Justice, Peace and Reconciliation Commission (JPC) of the Kenyan Catholic Church accused a Maasai cabinet minister of continuing to organize ethnic cleansing of large tracts of his Narok constituency in the Rift Valley using Maasai warriors, the Moran.

A local JPC coordinator, himself a Maasai, said that in the past few weeks, hundreds of families had been evicted and dozens of people killed in such attacks. Most of the victims were Kikuyus who had lived in the area for decades and had title deeds for what was originally Maasai territory before British colonial rule. One community, Enabelibel, had been systematically purged of Kikuyus since March. The Kikuyus were beaten, their homes destroyed and their cattle stolen.129 • In the lead-up to the December 1997 elections in Kenya, the district of Likoni, in Mombasa has been the target of much violence. The violence began with a raid on the local police station where 7 police officers were killed and weapons were stolen. The raiders also scrawled messages on the walls of buildings on the main street threatening that those who remain in the district will die. As a result more than 2,000 residents have fled their homes and sought shelter in Likoni’s Roman Catholic church. One woman told a Guardian reporter that she had been living in a room with her four children until a gang of men came to the house waving guns, machetes, axes and sticks. They beat the woman and despite her cries no one came to her aid. The gang looted the house and left. They then went to her brother’s house.

They forced him out of his house and took him to a lake where there were dead bodies and told him that he too would die. Luckily, he managed to escape. He was found days later hiding in a tree, afraid to come down.130 • The Kenyan National Tenants Association estimates that approximately 5,328 persons in Kisumu, Nairobi, Nakuru and Mombasa were forcibly evicted from their homes between 29 April and 7 May 1997 alone. Tenants were evicted for a variety of reasons including the development of city slums, the construction of a bus park, and supposed non-payment of rent.131 CESCR: Yes (1976) Const: No

LESOTHO • As predicted in COHRE’s Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.6, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, a five dam, USD $8 billion scheme being built to transfer water to South Africa’s industrial Guateng Province, has indeed led to the forcible eviction of dwellers on the land where the dams are to be constructed. Surprisingly, evictions have also been the fate of some of those actually working on the dam construction sites. According to the International Rivers Network at least five workers were shot dead and approximately 30 injured when police evicted striking workers from a Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) construction camp on 4 September 1996. At least 1,000 workers were evicted and forced to reside in a nearby Catholic church. The workers, employees of a consortium of five contractors from France, Germany, South Africa and the UK, were on strike to protest poor wages, unequal treatment of Basotho workers compared to those from other countries, police harassment of workers and the contractors’ dismantling of negotiating structures set up with the local construction workers’

128 129 130 131

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Ibid.

The Manchester Guardian (22 July 1995).

Chris McGreal, “Killers boost Moi’s poll prospects” The Guardian Weekly (21 September 1997) at 5.

Daily Nation (10 April 1997), (22 April 1997) at 19; (30 April 1997) at 4, 17; (8 May 1997) at 5, 18, 21.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

union, the Construction and Allied Workers Union of Lesotho. The LHWP is a multi-dam scheme being built to export Lesotho’s water to neighbouring South Africa. The USD $8 billion scheme - huge even by international construction project standards - threatens to overwhelm tiny Lesotho, where the average yearly income hovers between USD $500-600 and the government has no experience managing large construction projects.132 CESCR:Yes (1982) Const: No

MALAYSIA With the changes to the foundation of Malaysia’s economy, from agricultural to industry, has come the rise of squatter settlements. In the 1960s and 1970s migrants to the cities occupied unused and neglected land belonging to the government and semi-government bodies including land located near roads, highways, railway tracks, graveyards, rivers, disused mining pools and forests. These settlements were called rumah kilat meaning ‘lightening village’ for the speed with which they were established.

Many of the squatter settlements now have water, electricity, adequate sewerage systems and in some instances the local government provides garbage disposal. It is now estimated that in Kuala Lumpur alone there are currently close to 200,000 squatters or in the terminology of local housing groups, ‘urban pioneers’. According to the municipal authorities about 54% of squatters in Kuala Lumpur are relatively poor with an income of about USD $400/annum and 12.1% are absolutely poor with an income of approximately USD $120/annum. With the Prime Minister’s attempt to turn Malaysia into a fully developed country by the year 2020, there is an emphasis on modernization; squatters are no longer tolerated in the city, and the Land Acquisition Act has been amended so that the State can acquire any land for “development” purposes (the term “development” is not defined and can include public infrastructure or commercial buildings). In turn, forced evictions are now a common occurrence in Malaysia.

• According to Varathan Selvan of the Urban Pioneer Support Committee of Malaysia, in 1994 between 10,000 and 15,000 families were evicted from homes in the Klang Valley around Kuala Lumpur. The government and private developers bulldozed old communities and plantations to build high-rise condominiums, golf courses, townships, factories, a new government administrative centre and an international airport.133 • 29 families residing at Kampung Udara in Sungei Besi were evicted from their homes in August 1995, having received eviction notices in April of that same year. The squatters houses were pulled down to make way for an interchange or flyover from Taman Desa to the Kuala Lumpur-Sermban Highway and to accommodate a new condominium block. In protest, the residents brought their case to court but whilst attending at the High Court, workers from City Hall and the developer entered their village to demolish their community hall and place of worship, despite the fact that no notice or court order had been issued.134 A consent judgment was issued allowing the developers and the City to proceed with the eviction and leave to appeal was denied. With no legal avenues remaining, the squatters commenced negotiations with the developer. In the midst of these negotiations, City Hall made a blatant show of power and hostility toward the squatter settlement, by issuing a notice to the squatters that their houses would be torn down at the beginning of August 1995. The residents had been living there

132 International Rivers Network, Lori Pottinger, “Police Kill Striking Dam Workers in Lesotho” (1996) September World Rivers Review 1, 11.

133 ACHR, Eviction Watch Asia (1995).

134 “Evicted folk lodge report with the ACA against Datuk Bandar” Time New Sundays (13 July 1995).

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for 25 years and the settlement had basic amenities including potable water, telephone and electricity supplies.135 Squatters were offered dilapidated longhouses for temporary shelter after the eviction and despite demands for at least 12,000 RM, they were offered a pithy 1,000 RM. • The Asian Coalition for Housing has estimated that in 1996 in Kuala Lumpur approximately 2,000 families (10,000 persons) were victims of forced eviction. In turn, squatter settlements are appearing outside of Kuala Lumpur and in nearby Shah Alam, Petaling Jaya and Kelang Valley.136 CESCR: No Const: No

NEPAL • In a mass eviction that began in August 1994, some 600 members of at least 95 families were uprooted from public land in various parts of Butwal municipality, in the Lumbini zone of Kathmandu. The affected squatters, renters and owners, who had settled on the land seven years earlier, lost property and possessions estimated to be worth US$100,000 in total. Municipal officials and police carried out the eviction two months after the first warnings were issued. The people were told to leave their houses immediately, after which the bulldozers moved in and demolished them. According to the Kathmandubased Lumanti, the victims had lost their livelihoods and were living in misery, the authorities having provided neither financial compensation nor relocation sites. The official reasons for the eviction were that it was necessary to reduce road accidents caused by the encroachment of the settlements on a highway, and to construct culverts and drainage channels. In one area, it was reported that the eviction occurred as a means of cleaning up the area around the Lumbini zonal hospital.137 • Eight families were evicted from Pingasthan, Kathmandu Municipal Corporation Ward No. 8 on 7 April 1996. The families were migrants from rural areas who had been squatting on the land for approximately 4 months earning their living through rag picking. No basic services or amenities were available to the community. The Kathmandu Municipal Corporation evicted the families with only four days verbal notice on the basis that the neighbouring community did not want a squatter settlement in their vicinity, believing that squatter settlements are dirty and uncivilized. The land currently stands vacant, unused.138 • Lumanti reported that the 20 year old Kohity Settlement and its 88 dwellings were demolished on 10-11 March 1996, rendering more than 400 people homeless. The dwellers were given a week’s notice prior to the eviction which occurred on a cold and rainy day in the presence of armed police officers and a bulldozer. Dwellers whose homes had not been bulldozed were told to demolish their own homes.

The settlement was evicted under the Urban Development Project funded by the Asian Development Bank and was implemented by the Kathmandu Municipal Corporation. The project consisted of municipal infrastructure improvements, construction of a road and institutional strengthening. The matter has since been taken to court.139 • 18 families were asked to vacate Kuria Gaon, Kathmandu Municipal Corporation Ward No.11 despite the fact that they had been living there for 24 years. A road will be constructed in place of these homes.140 135 136 137 138 139 140

50

T. Sanmuga, “Protest over City Hall’s demolition of homes” The Sun (5 August 1995).

ACHR, supra note 3 at 1 and 51.

ACHR, ibid.

Ibid. at 40.

Ibid. at 41-2.

Ibid. at 42.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

• On 28 June 1997, nearly 200 families were evicted from Tinkune, Dharan Municipality by the local municipal authorities, without due process or legal authorization.141 CESCR: Yes (1991) Const: Yes (art. 26 (1))

NIGERIA Successive Nigerian governments have had atrocious and widely condemned human rights records, one dimension of which is clearly reflected in the number of forced evictions Nigerians have suffered over the last few years.

• Ogoniland has been a particular target of the Nigerian government’s disregard for human rights. As a result of the activities of state supported oil companies, Ogoniland’s environment has been virtually destroyed, and the Ogonis themselves continue to be plagued by state-sponsored arrests, torture, rape, summary executions and government instigated communal clashes. Of course, these abuses climaxed with the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, and his eight co-defendants. Alongside these human rights violations, violations of economic and social rights, including forced evictions, continue to occur on a daily basis. The Civil Liberties Organization, a Lagos-based NGO for human rights, reported that as of January 1994 thousands of Ogonis had been made homeless by the military campaign in that region. For example, nearly 900 people were displaced from the town of Deeyor and approximately 265 from Biara.142 Evictions in Ogoniland have taken place as part of the “Silence Ogoni” campaign. In these cases, military officers armed with automatic weapons approach villages in armoured vehicles camouflaged as the neighbouring ethnic group in order to make the raid appear as a communal clash. During one such raid in April, 1994, eight Ogoni villages were destroyed, hundreds of villages were killed and several women and children were raped. These military raids have forced the mass displacement of a huge population of Ogoni villagers, causing many to flee into the surrounding forests or to neighbouring towns and cities. At least 1,000 Ogonis have sought asylum in Benin.143 In other parts of Nigeria, forced evictions, removals and demolitions are also commonplace. The following are some recent examples: • In January 1995, at least 15,000 people, mainly fisherfolk and their families, were forcibly evicted from Banana Island, a previously deserted island which had been sand-filled and thus made habitable by its residents. This very fact made it highly desirable to powerful residents of the nearby affluent neighbourhoods of Ikoyi and Victoria Island, who offered the Banana Island community the paltry relocation fee of 2000 Naira per family. After this offer was rejected, bulldozers demolished the community and armed soldiers chased away the residents. The government did not relocate the victims, who were deprived of effective access to the fishing grounds that were their livelihood.

• On 18 November 1995, bulldozers were used to demolish Festac Second Gate Market. It was the only functional market in Festac Town and more than 2,000 traders had earned their living there. With so few facilities and services available in the estate, the demolition of the market compounded the problems for the residents. The traders, who had occupied the land for 17 years, were given only two hours notice of demolition by the estate’s managers, the Federal Housing Authority. Under the relocation plan, 141 Eviction Watch Asia, supra note 133, p. 122.

142 Nigerian Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), O.S. Olumhense & O. Douglas “Ogoni: Agony of a Nation” (1994) May - August Liberty.

143 Shelter Rights Initiative (SRI), (April 1997) Report on Nigeria’s Implementation of the International Covenant at 22.

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the minor traders were requested to pay astronomical sums of 75,000 Naira for stalls at a new market under construction.

• In central Lagos, around the central mosque, demolition of residential and commercial buildings has been going on since October 1995. The Lagos State Government claimed to have acquired the land in the 1940s. Thereafter, it had allowed individuals and organizations to develop sites there. Over four decades later, the State Government started bulldozing structures on the land without due process.144 1996 was a particularly harsh year for forced evictions in Nigeria.

• The foundation for the events of 1996 in Lagos started emerging in late 1995 when Ajah town, a suburb of Lagos, was attacked by bulldozers on the orders of the Acting Military Administrator of Lagos State. The government claimed that it had acquired the land for development projects. The demolition lasted three days and nights and hundreds of people were rendered homeless.145 • On 4 January 1996 about 20 armed soldiers stormed a private hostel in Ira Quarter, Ojo and evicted over 50 students of the Lagos State University.

• In May of that year demolitions and forced evictions were rampant as Major General Abdulkareem Adisa, the Minister of Works and Housing, unleashed his bulldozers into the city of Lagos. No structure located under a bridge or a flyover was spared, because, according to the Major General, they were within 30 metres of the bridge and as such illegally violated the right of way. On 16 May 1996 warehouses erected under bridges were razed, food vendors, mechanics and other artisans were displaced and their property reduced to rubble. Eventually even structures located at some distance from the bridges were subject to bulldozers. This frenzy of destruction continued relatively unabated for three weeks and beyond businesses, it eventually included the destruction of houses. For example, bulldozers of the Ministry of Works and Housing flattened the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) site quarters on 12 Road, Ipaja town on the outskirts of Lagos. As a result more than 70 people who had resided there since 1989 were rendered homeless. Other areas affected included: Ijora, CMS/Apongbon, Ojuelegba, Oshodi market, Idumota, Obalende, Liverpool Apap-Oshodi (Wilmer end).146 Ultimately over 250,000 traders, kiosks and residences were demolished.147 • On 11 May 1996, without warning, authorities of the National Library of Nigeria (NLN), assisted by heavily armed police and labourers, stormed the premises of the NLN Estate and began the forced eviction of 11 families. The residents targeted were entitled to ownership of the houses under the “owneroccupier” housing policy of the government for estates in Satellite Town. The policy established a housing incentive program whereby staff had money deducted from their monthly salaries towards the cost of the houses. Despite completing the required payments, the NLN had consistently refused all directives from the Lagos State Government and the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to effectively transfer ownership of the houses to the affected staff members. At the time of the attack the evictees had a matter pending in a Lagos High Court over the refusal of the NLN to transfer the houses to them.

The forced eviction by the NLN, therefore, disregarded and in fact flew-in-the-face of judicial authority.148 144 145 146 147 148

52

SRI, (December 1995) Report of the Inaugural Quarterly Sessions, Apapa, Lagos.

SRI, supra note 143 at 6-7.

SRI, (1996) June - December Shelter Watch at 6-9.

Bashir Adigun, “UN committee summons Nigeria over alleged illegal demolition” The Guardian (13 May 1997).

Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC), (1997) Expendable People: An Exploratory Report on Planned Forced Evictions in Lagos at 19-21.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

• 5 months after the issuance of a notice to quit, and following protests in the form of two court cases, several demonstrations and appeals to the Head of State, the Ministry of Works and Housing went ahead and forcibly evicted the 3,000 residents of the Harvey Moore Road Settlement. The Harvey Moore Road Settlement was established in 1948 and consisted of 15 blocks of eight rooms each on a 400 metre stretch of land. Before the eviction there were about 250 families or over 3,000 people, many of them elderly, living in the settlement. It is still unclear why the government chose this site to bulldoze, though activists and residents speculate that the government wanted the land because it is prime real estate.

The house demolitions were carried out by armed Police who threatened tenants by firing shots into the air and by systematically removing the doors and roofs of many houses. Anyone who dared to challenge the eviction was arrested. Residents of the Settlement were offered, “bachas” or alternative accommodation located next to the Settlement, however, reports indicate that these houses are grossly inadequate, lacking essentials such as ceilings, toilets, bathrooms and kitchens.149 • In January 1997 approximately 15,000 people living in the Ilubirin shanty settlement in central Lagos were displaced from their homes.150 • In February 1997 hundreds of random evictions occurred in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, which affected over 3,000 traders and resulted in the damage and loss of much property.151 CESCR: Yes (1993) Const: No

PAKISTAN According to a 1996 Pakistani human rights report, nearly one-third of all urban populations in Pakistan live on illegally occupied lands called katchi abadis. Those living in katchi abadis and slums in Pakistan are at greatest risk of eviction. A katchi abadi is a city settlement of wage-earning families who have built their own huts on what was unoccupied land (usually state land). Often the poor receive this accommodation through the “land mafia” backed by corrupt government officials, police and a whole system of thugs or musclemen. Land is illegally occupied by the mafia and then sold to the poor who then build their houses on it, and through the bribe market, acquire water, electricity, roads and schools.

These settlements expand over time as families are brought over. In Karachi, 5 million people or 40% of the city’s population live in 539 such settlements; Hyderabad has 469, Sukkur has 238 and Larkana has 112. 11.5% of the population of Punjab lives in katchi abadis and approximately 37.5% of the population dwells in slums. Lahore has 216 slums with 85,000 housing units and 315 katchi abadis with 350,000 units.152 COHRE has been able to compile information on evictions from two areas: Karachi and Lahore.

Karachi In 1996 1,817 families (9,085 people) suffered eviction in Karachi alone. The most common reason used by government officials and private developers to justify evictions is that the settlement to be demolished is located in a “dangerous zone” such as on a river bed, the sea shore, railway lines or under bridges. Other reasons for evictions include “illegal” settlements on government land or “ugly spots” on private land (demolishing the katchi abadi ostensibly increases the land value 100 times) or claims that the land is needed for amenities (bridges, roads, bus terminals etc.). These evictions take place in a vari-

149 150 151 152

SRI, supra note 143.

Bashir Adigun, supra note 147.

Ibid.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in 1996 at 196-8.

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ety of ways. In most cases no prior notice is issued to the affected persons. Typically, one or two hours prior to the operation a microphone statement is made by the police announcing the demolition of the settlement. Most often evictions in this region occur on a weekday to ensure that the men are at their workplaces and cannot defend their homes. Stay orders from the court - if granted - are commonly ignored on the basis that stays do not apply to illegal settlements. Beyond the use of bulldozers to demolish structures, police and government officials also set fire to settlements as a means of demolition. For example, between 18 November 1995 and 7 July 1996, 581 huts had been burned in this region resulting in four deaths and at least 195 injuries.

What follows are some examples of evictions that took place in Karachi in 1996:153 • On 16 January 1996, 47 houses in the 25 year old Shireen Jinnah Colony were bulldozed to accommodate the city administration’s plan to build a bus terminal at that location. No prior notices were issued to the affected families and no compensation or alternative plans were offered. After the demolition, 20 families were living in a school on the demolition site, but it is reported that they were eventually threatened by the police to evacuate and so fled the area.

• On 18 March 1996 at 7:00 a.m. the residents of the Lasbelapul Mustafa Colony, a 45 year old settlement, were confronted by the district administration and the police and were given four hours to evacuate their homes. 240 houses and shops were demolished and another 360 are scheduled to reach the same fate ostensibly to make way for the widening of the Lasbela bridge. As of 26 September 1996 construction work on the bridge had not yet commenced. Prior to the demolitions this settlement possessed basic urban facilities such as water supply, electricity, gas, sewage lines and some houses had telephone connections. These services were received through legal means and residents regularly paid their bills and taxes. As a direct consequence of the demolitions electric, water and sewage systems are no longer functioning.

• On 5 June 1996 more than 100 houses were demolished in the Lines Area of Karachi as part of the Lines Area Re-Development Plan (LARP) that originally commenced in 1980. According to the initial LARP all evictees would receive alternative plots. As it stands, many plots have been allotted to false claimants rather than to those who have been evicted.154 • On 22 June 1996, 20 houses were bulldozed at the Manzoor Colony Nala (Drain) bed. The plan aimed to increase the width of the drain up to 150 feet. Ultimately this plan will dislocate 2,000 houses (10,000 people approximately) but due to vehement protests from the residents, further bulldozing was ceased. Residents have told authorities that they are willing to relocate but only if they are provided with compensation for their losses and alternative plots of land on which to build houses and maintain a livelihood.

• On 31 July 1996 Shehbaz Goth, a katchi abadi built up and lived in for over eight years, was completely demolished. 522 houses were destroyed and approximately 6,000 persons were rendered homeless. No notice or compensation was provided.

• In September 1996 the prime minister attempted to have the land of four katchi abadis near Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi Shrine in Clifton allotted to its residents, however it was ultimately determined

153 The evictions in Karachi are as reported in ACHR, supra note 3 at 68 - 76.

154 Ibid. at 72.

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that these were amenity plots and that the prime minister’s order could only be carried out if the law was changed. In turn, the tenants have not been provided security of tenure and remain vulnerable to eviction.155

Lahore Area • During 1996 seven katchi abadis in Lahore were either evacuated or faced the threat of eviction. In each of the cases the evacuation was done without any consultation with the evictees, without notice and without provision of alternative accommodation or compensation. For example, in June 1996 the 40 year old katchi abadi in Qurban Line in Lahore Canton was completely demolished by the railway company even though the Prime Minister herself reportedly forbade such action.156 • In August 1996 the Lahore Development Authority demolished the Benazir Colony which housed 2,000 residents.

• 76 families in Gulshan-I-Ravi in Lahore, resident there for 20 years, were evicted by a land grabber who occupied the land and then to profit proceeded to rent it out closer to market rates.

CESCR: No Const: Yes (art. 38(d))

PAPUA NEW GUINEA • Under a Morobe provincial government policy of “Klinim Morobe” intended to clear the city Lae of squatter settlements, approximately 400 families (over 700 people) living in the PHD, Mosquito and Aisiawe settlements were rendered homeless when their houses were burned and bulldozed by police officers on 27 - 30 April 1995. Premier Titi Christian said that his government would not commit itself to repatriation of settlers to their home provinces stating that “the settlers must go out the same way they came in”. As was the case in the 1994 eviction of 100 dwellers in Rabaul, the squatters were left to fend for themselves as the government offered no assistance such as alternative accommodation or emergency shelter following the eviction.157 CESCR: No Const: No

PHILIPPINES According to the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), at least 11,000 people were illegally evicted from their homes in 1994, though the government claims it has no records of the numbers of people evicted.158 • From January to November 1996, 6, 761 families (40,566 people) were evicted from their homes in the Philippines. It is estimated that 80% of these families were evicted after President Ramos publicly announced his drive to clear the city of Manila of squatters in preparation for the November 1996 APEC meeting. Local governments used President Ramos’ statements to proceed with evictions in their local areas.159 In most cases, the government prescribed demolition procedures are not followed. This means 155 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, supra note 152 at 198.

156 The average katchi abadi has 1,111 units in Lahore and if each unit houses on average 5 people then 5,500 people would be affected.

157 “400 families forced out of their homes”, Weekend National (28 - 30 April 1995) at 1-2. See also: “Squatter houses go up in flames”, Post-Courier (28 - 30 April 1995) at 1.

158 ACHR, supra note 53.

159 ACHR, supra note 3 at 79.

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that the 30 day prior notice is not observed, consultations with the affected families are not held, and relocation or compensation in most cases is not given. When relocation is provided, the government commonly moves squatter families to distant relocation sites, usually 40 - 50 kilometres from the city, where basic services are inadequate and travel costs are high. No new schools, clinics or hospitals are built to accommodate these new residents.

Manila • The population of Metro Manila is approximately 10 million. 4.5 million are said to be squatters and over the last 10 years 100,000 people have been evicted from their homes. Of those evicted only 2530% have been relocated or received some form of compensation.

• 1994 ended with an eviction scenario common to Manila. In a bid to rid Manila of some of its “eyesores” one week before the November visit of US President Bill Clinton, the government initiated a programme entitled “Opian Sagip Yagit”. Targeting the area near the Malacanang Palace, 129 street children were rounded-up and 40 clapboard shanty houses were demolished rendering at least 200 people homeless. The homes were destroyed so that President Clinton would not see them. The required 30day notice of demolition was not given and no alternative site was prepared for the victims. They filed a protest with the UN Commission on Human Rights and brought their children to the hotel where President Clinton was staying. Press coverage of the demonstration included a CNN interview with protesters. However, police took away the children’s placards when the party of the US president came into view.160 • In June 1995 Mayor Lis ordered 43 houses to be demolished on the basis that the people were “illegal”, professional squatters. The dwellers who had been on the land since the 1930s were provided 7 days notice and no consultations took place prior to the eviction.

• On 23-24 June 1995, 28 families in Metro Manila were rendered homeless after their houses were demolished so that the Municipal government could extend the Marikina Bridge. Contrary to law the demolition occurred on a weekend and no writ of demolition from the court was presented to the evictees prior to their eviction. The Municipal government claimed that the families were living on government owned land. In total the families lost approximately 1.4 million pesos.

• In June 1995, 9 families were driven out of their homes and their homes which were subsequently demolished in Makati on the basis that the families had been living there illegally for 30 years as they did not have title to the land.

• 461 households on Davila St. in Makati were demolished in July 1995 without a court order to give way to a drainage project planned by the Office of the City Mayor of Makati.161 Four residents were injured and many were threatened that their houses and belongings would be burned if they did not evacuate.

• According to the UPA, on 31 July 1995 approximately 5,000 houses were demolished in the Lower Bicutan Tagig area near Metro Manila. This violent eviction resulted in the death of three people, two infants and an older woman as well as several injuries. The government stated that the houses had to be demolished as they were “illegally” built on government land and that this area was targeted to be converted into an international transmission area to trace sea boarding vehicles.

160 ACHR and Urban Poor Associates (UPA), (March 1995) Housing by People in Asia.

161 KPML Fact Sheets (1995) and letter from UPA (5 December 1995).

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• 400 families were evicted from Lupang Pari, San Miguel in Pasig in August, 1995. In the 1970s the government evicted the poor people from nearby land because their houses stood in the way of a road construction. They were then relocated to church owned land at Lupang Pari. A Manila Bishop donated this land to the municipal government of Pasig on condition that it be distributed to squatter families. The Mayor at the time, however, sold the land to a group of school teachers, who then demanded it back from the “squatters”. Evictees were hosed-down by fire trucks to prevent a human barricade from forming. The demolitions occurred during particularly harsh, stormy weather and on Saturday when, by law, it is illegal to carry out a forced eviction in the Philippines.

• Three months later, 284 families were evicted after their houses were demolished so that the government could revive an old railway line to connect the international container port to the main railroad station. This project, funded by the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECD) of Japan is part of a government project to upgrade and expand the railroad network in Manila. The government estimates another 8,000 families along the rail route will be evicted.

• The most documented eviction incident in Manila between in recent years is the Smokey Mountain case. Smokey Mountain, a Municipal garbage dump in Tondo, Manila was home to 15,000 squatters many of whom made their living by sifting through refuse.162 In November 1995, President Ramos ordered the removal of the 21 hectare shantytown which activists report was part of the clean-up of Manila’s urban poor for the Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) that was to be hosted by President Ramos in Manila in November 1996. The demolition of these houses was ordered to make way for the construction of the Smokey Mountain Housing Facility, comprised of medium rise residential buildings, a $150 million garbage incinerator and commercial and industrial facilities. The plan is expected to be implemented in several phases and will be fully complete after 1998.163 Those residents who did not oppose the government’s plan to develop Smokey Mountain, were relocated to 12 sq.m. houses at “temporary sites” in Aroma, Vitas, and Tondo which are relatively close to their former homes. After the completion of the development project the families in the temporary sites will ostensibly be relocated back to Smokey Mountain. But there is a price. Families will be required to pay for a unit in one of the newly built medium rise residential buildings. In turn, a family’s ability to pay will determine their ability to return home. Those dwellers at Smokey Mountain who refused the government’s plan formed an association called AKBAYAN 2000 and drew up an alternative to the government’s eviction plan. AKBAYAN’s plan allocates one hectare of land for 200 families, suggesting that there is enough land to give all 3,000 families 40 sq.m lots; 20% of each hectare could be reserved for roads (minimal width roads since poor people do not have cars) and for other public uses. In turn, with only 15 hectares being used for housing, 7 hectares would remain that could be used for business, commerce and light industry. The incinerator, which was environmentally unsound and poorly located (in an already congested area) would have to be relocated. Despite this humane and feasible alternative, that would have ensured all of the Smokey Mountain residents a place to live while allowing for some development, the government proceeded with the eviction. With 30 days notice and whilst AKBAYAN was in the midst of initiating genuine consultation and negotiations with government officials, in a surprise move by the government, the remaining residents of Smokey Mountain were, over a two day period, forcibly evicted from their homes.

A few minutes prior to the eviction, 1,000 police officers and several SWAT teams surrounded the settlement and announced that the residents had 10 minutes to clear themselves out of their homes.

Human barricades - primarily of women and children - were formed but teargas grenades were lobbed into the crowds and houses forcing the barricade to disband.164 As a result of the bloody clashes 162 The Economist (9 September 1995) at 65-66.

163 Ibid. at 5.

164 Facsimile from UPA (8 December 1995).

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between police - who were reportedly carrying M-16s and .45 cal. pistols - and residents of Smokey Mountain, one person was killed, 10 suffered gun shot wounds and another 10 were injured. More than 180 structures were demolished, and 1400 families rendered homeless.165 In all, 3,000 families were forced to vacate their homes to accommodate for the government’s development plan.166 The government offered those who were evicted temporary shelter for 5 months. However, according to a news report only a small percentage of the evictees have approached the National Housing Authority for resettlement accommodation. The NHA reported that it had turned away 139 evicted families because they were not included in the 1993 census of the Smokey Mountain community. Instead, these families were given P5,000 to assist them in reconstructing their lives.167 • In June 1996 President Ramos announced and launched his government’s campaign to remove “eyesores” from Metro Manila to beautify the city prior to the commencement of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November 1996. This policy threatened close to 437,450 urban poor families in Metro Manila, almost one-third of the entire population of the city.168 An example of such an eviction occurred on 26 -27 June 1996 when three hundred families were evicted from Del Pan, Manila after their homes were demolished. The government refused to relocate the evictees saying that poor people who reside in dangerous areas are not covered by a law which requires the government to relocate evictees. In July 1996 the homes of another 40 families living under Tambo bridge in Paranaque were demolished.

• In 1996, 901 families (4,505 people) were forcibly evicted from their homes in the following cities: Makati, Paranaque, Malabon, Kalookan, Pasay, Malabon, Navotas. 43% of these evictions were directly related to the APEC meeting hosted in the Philippines by the Ramos government in November 1996.

Quezon City • 30 houses were destroyed in Barangay Pook Pag-asa, Batasan Hills on 15 June 1995. The eviction was led by the City Engineer’s office and a 6 man SWAT team, plus a team of 50 individuals. Some houses were demolished without their owners present.

• Just less than one month later, 130 families were evicted from their homes after a powerful and rich local family won a court case which determined that the squatters had been living on the land “illegally” since the 1950s. As soon as the court decision was handed-down, the sheriff and policemen implemented the decision without observing notice procedures, without providing opportunities for consultation or relocation sites for the evictees.

• On 11 July 1995 in Balon-bato, Camachile 65 houses were demolished, 5 of which were burned on the basis that they were illegally constructed on private property.

• In late October 1995, 35 families living in Brgy Pinyahan, Quezon City were evicted from their homes despite having lived there since the 1960s.

• 63 shanties at the La Mesa Watershed in Novaliches were demolished on 27 November 1995, affecting hundreds of families. Although the municipal government claimed that one week notice had 165 Rocky Nazareno, “Solons condemn Smokey violence” PDI (29 November 1995) 4-5.

166 Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) and the Philippine Human Rights Information Centre (PhilRights), (1996) Dark Stains Spreading on the Canvas: A Human Rights Report on the Third Year of the Ramos Government at 31.

167 Natasha Vizcarra, “Uprooted, Smokey residents drift along” Philippine Daily Inquirer (3 December 1995) at 21.

168 Letter from Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) (29 October 1996).

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been sent-out warning the dwellers of the eviction, the residents stated that they were taken by surprise.

The government indicated that the watershed was a “protected area” which should not be opened to inhabitants and for this reason, the residents were evicted.

• In November 1995, with only 15 days notice, 300 families were forcibly evicted from their homes by a SWAT team and several policemen carrying guns.

CESCR: Yes (1976) Const: Yes (arts. 13(9), 13(10))

POLAND Though nation-wide statistics on evictions in Poland are unavailable, COHRE was able to obtain information regarding evictions that have taken place in the municipality of Cracow. At the end of 1994, the new “Law on Flats and Rental Allowances” came into effect. According to this law all evictions are now sentenced by courts and the verdict stipulates whether the municipality must provide the evicted person with another flat. If the verdict contains no such clause, the evicted person is simply evicted with no further assistance from the municipality.

• 117 evictions have been ordered by the court since the implementation of this legislation. Of these, 23 evictees were moved to low standard social flats provided by the municipality. At the same time, a tenant organization in Cracow reports that the courts have indicated that eviction without the provision of an alternative flat is justified in the case of “squatters”. Additionally, upon eviction, squatters are not provided any legal protection for their belongings.169 CESCR: Yes (1977) Const: Yes (art. 65 (1)-(4))

ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES The number of squatter households in the country has grown rapidly in recent years both as a result of setbacks to the banana industry and the decline and lack of intervention by the government within the housing sphere to ensure everyone legal, adequate housing resources. In turn, many squatters reside in insecure dwellings and may be threatened with eviction.

• A number of people were evicted from the Reclamation Site in downtown Kingston, some of whom were former Banana growers unable to continue work, and thus forced to migrate to the capital in search of work and a place to live.

• In another instance, an area under construction for a cruise ship berth resulted in approximately 150 persons being forced to vacate their homes and land. The affected families only received cash compensation (following a year of negotiation), and did not receive relocation, rehousing or resettlement.170 CESCR: Yes (1982) Const: No

169 Facsimile from Tenants Association (August 1997).

170 COHRE, (November 1997) St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Fact Finding Mission Report.

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SOUTH AFRICA • After the April 1994 multi-racial elections finally brought an end to apartheid rule in South Africa, the ANC-led government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) called for 150,000 houses to be built each year. As a result, there was a massive influx of so-called ‘squatters’ into Cato Manor, five kilometres from Durban city centre. Cato Manor had been an African residential area until 1955, when the apartheid government started removing the Africans. In September 1994, the National Housing Board, the development-implementing arm of the new National Housing Ministry, obtained an eviction order against the ‘squatters’ on the grounds that they had “jumped the queue” for housing. The People’s Dialogue on Land and Shelter, an NGO (affiliated to the South African Homeless People’s Federation (SAHPF), a movement of over 20,000 families) reported that Housing Minister Dan Mofokeng had stated that his government “had been given a mandate to take firm action against land invasions”, and that the National Housing Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office had said something to the effect that “queue-jumping” would not be tolerated. This stunned thousands of squatters and shack-dwellers; they refused to believe that an ANC-led government could condone such statements and consider forced removal and demolition as ways of dealing with the homeless.171 By July 1996 between 12,000 and 15,000 houses had been built since the elections, far fewer than the RDP target of 300,000.172 • By October 1995, it was clear that the eviction of farm workers and their families - some of whom had lived on the farms in question all their lives - was common in rural areas of South Africa. In September alone, hundreds of cases were reported. The ANC-led government had no stop-gap measure to deal with such desperate situations, no plan to resettle the evicted farm workers, some of whom were fully fledged farmers in their own right. Instead, the director-general of the Department of Land Affairs, Mr. Coenie de Villiers, was quoted as saying his department would not go on a land-buying spree and then ask the people if they wanted the land. In the worst case of mass eviction, in late September, some 350 workers and their families were evicted by the local sheriff from a farm at Tarlton, near Krugersdorp on the West Rand. Their problems had started in July, when it became clear that the previous owner of the farm was having difficulties running it. He later disappeared without warning. The new owner called in the sheriff to evict the workers. They included two men aged 65 and 70 who had worked on the farm for an unbroken period of three decades.173 • In the run-up to the local government elections of 1 November 1995 and particularly in the week before polling, scores of farm workers and their families were evicted from farms in the districts of Ermelo and Bethal, Mpumalanga Province. In some cases, the victims were given no time to pack their belongings or round up their precious livestock. Their cases were being handled by Themba Dube, an attorney for the RTM Community Development. He was quoted as saying he could not find words to describe the plight of the farm workers: “In one of the cases, 18 workers and their families were kicked out of one farm. They included a widow whose husband had lived on the farm from the cradle to the grave.”174 • In early November 1995, the SAHPF started receiving reports from farm workers and their families in the Fisantekraal, Fisantkop and Klippe (Durbanville) areas of the Western Cape that they were facing homelessness. Farm owners had informed them that they would only provide accommodation to individuals actually employed on their farms. That meant that if wives and children wanted to be close

171 Letter from People’s Dialogue on Land and Shelter/SAHPF (19 September 1994).

172 Rick de Satge and Colleen Lowe Morna, “Homeless have little hope of help from government” in Reconstruct: Quarterly Supplement to Mail and Guardian (12-18 July 1996) at iv.

173 National Land Committee, (October 1995) Land Update.

174 National Land Committee (November 1995) Land Update.

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to the breadwinners they would have to squat, and that if farm workers were dismissed - for example, because they had complained about high rents - they would also lose their accommodation. The SAHPF reported a marked increase in such evictions during October 1995, before the new Land Reform Bill granted land tenure rights to farm labourers. Those told to leave had no alternative but to reside with other labourers who still had jobs, or to occupy land, which would usually result in their being charged under the Trespass Act (even though that is technically illegal). Towards the end of October, some evicted farmers and their families occupied vacant land belonging to the Cape Rural Transitional Substructure (CRTS), on which farmers from this area are well represented. They were evicted by the Cape Metropolitan Council (CMC) for the first time on 21 October. They then entered into negotiations with the CRTS, which opposed a plan to resettle them on an alternative site they had identified in the area.

Instead, the farmers insisted the homeless be removed to Gugulethu or Khayelitsha. The homeless refused to go because that would leave them too far away from the Durbanville area, where they had lived for years, where they had family and friends and where they had the highest chance of surviving.

When the people realized their negotiations with the CRTS were pointless, they occupied the new land they had identified. On 10 November 1995, more than 20 families were arrested by the CRTS security company. In the Kuils River Courts on 29 November, they were charged with trespassing. A further wave of evictions took place on 11 and 14 December, involving at least 30 women and children. In a meeting with the homeless and the SAHPF at Durbanville Clinic on 8 December, the CMC said it would appoint a consultant to deal with the matter, but it subsequently failed to do so. Eventually, farmers decided to register all employees on their farms, putting their relatives and unemployed labourers at greater risk of being evicted or charged with trespassing. On 12 December 1995, another ten ‘squatters’ were arrested and their temporary shelter destroyed on land owned by the CMC. At no time did the uniformed arresting officers identify themselves. At Kuils River Courts the next day, the ‘squatters’ were charged with trespassing and then released, with orders to re-appear on 16 January 1996. The SAHPF argued that, instead of the futile cycle of arrests and court appearances, it would be better to start a low-cost housing development on the squatted land, which, according to the CMC’s director of Metro Planning, had been earmarked as a zone for medium-density residential development.175 • On 19 December 1995, the same types of armoured vehicles that had inspired fear under apartheid were deployed in an operation to destroy at least 500 homes occupied by some 3,000 poor people in Gauteng Province (formerly Transvaal). The Gauteng government subsequently refused to provide alternative land for those made homeless on the grounds that this “would set a precedent”.176 • At the end of October 1996 more than 100 families (500 people) living in a squatter settlement in Durbanville, Tygerberg received eviction notices, providing them with a mere 7 days to vacate the land and take down their houses before the arrival of the eviction squads. The notices were issued under the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act (1951) which, with the passing of the final South African Constitution in 1996, is regarded as unconstitutional.177 • On 21 March 1997, Human Rights Day in South Africa, 6 community groups belonging to the SAHPF invaded land in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. These groups, with a proven track record of negotiations with the democratically elected government, took this action as a means of expressing that the present system of land reform was not working for the urban poor themselves. Two groups were forced off the land without a court order and without any serious attempts by the authorities to find a negotiated solution.178 175 176 177 178

Letter Letter Letter Letter

from from from from

People’s People’s People’s People’s

Dialogue/SAHPF (15 December 1995).

Dialogue (19 December 1995).

Dialogue (29 October 1996).

Dialogue (24 March 1997).

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• In Cape Town a group of black shack dwellers from New Crossroads, having invaded neighbouring council lands, was persuaded to move off the land as a precondition for negotiations with the council (with the proviso from the council that no development take place on the land in question before the date on which negotiations were to commence).179 • Additionally, in Durban two groups were forced off the land. One group had been forced to flee from their shacks in Siyanda when their decision to start a savings scheme angered a local warlord. Two people were killed before the people fled. They sought safety at a police station in Newlands East where they were not permitted to erect any structures, even of a temporary nature. In turn, women and children spent more than a week in the open, including two days of uninterrupted rain.180 • In a separate incident in Sherwood, Durban, police used teargas and pepper gas to evict 200 people from an open council land which Durban council was intending sell to the army to be developed into barracks. No court orders were sought and the people were not informed of their rights. Personal property belonging to the evictees was either confiscated or destroyed. Photographs of the incident were not allowed to be taken and the head of the Durban Council Squatter Control Unit instructed his men to confiscate the cameras and to use force if necessary. After a ten kilometre walk along the national highway under the watchful eye of the police, the evictees settled on a highway embankment near the Durban open market.181 CESCR: Yes Const: Yes (art. 26)

SOUTH KOREA After many large-scale forced evictions of squatters in the late 1960s and 1970s, the South Korean government turned to a case-by-case, long term approach to illegal housing spread throughout the country. In the late 1970s eliminating illegal housing was subsumed under the title of “urban re-development”. Since then, the major incidents of large-scale forced evictions have been associated with a type of urban development called “cooperative re-development” aimed at replacing poor families in particular areas with middle class families.182 Most evictions in Seoul are against renters who refuse to move out of areas targeted for redevelopment or new urban development areas in the satellite cities. Most of the violent evictions have been carried out by private construction companies and two government agencies, the Korea National Housing Corporation and the Korea Land Development Corporation which employ eviction agencies to violently evict dwellers. The usual contract price for an eviction agency to evict renters from a redevelopment district is USD$2.5 million. The huge price tag is associated with the savings the redevelopment cooperative or corporation can retain if the renters are evicted quickly.

According to the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, a one month shortening of the eviction period can save the redevelopment cooperative or corporation USD$620,000. As it stands, there are 6 or 7 eviction agencies in Seoul. Thugs are usually hired to physically carry out the evictions. These men are paid to move into an area and create an atmosphere of violence and fear. When a large-scale eviction is to occur, these evictors then hire another 50 or so thugs drawn from the local population to assist in carrying out the eviction. The evictors who work directly for the agency receive a daily wage that is well above that of skilled construction workers and the front-line fighters reportedly earn up to USD$1,250 per day of confrontation.183 179 180 181 182 183

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Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

ACHR, supra note 3 at 38.

Ibid., at 39-40.

Global Survey on Forced Evictions No.7

• 43 families (151 people)184 were violently evicted from their homes in Haengdang 1-2, an urban redevelopment district of Seoul in September 1997. All of the renters were long-term low income residents with no other housing alternatives in the area. The government has denied the residents compensation on the basis that they moved into the area after the redevelopment project was announced. However, the project for this area was announced over 9 years ago but was never carried out. Prior to the eviction, the renters organized themselves and carried out a dialogue with the redevelopment association and the local authorities. The association refused their most basic demand for shelter. On 30 September 1997 the renters scheduled a rally at the local government office with police permission. While most of the renters were on their way to the rally, 100 court-hired evictors and approximately 400 thugs of the Chokjun Eviction Agency entered the district and carried out the eviction with unprovoked violence.

Contrary to legal procedures, the evictors destroyed walls and roofs before any court representative appeared. The thugs of the eviction agency beat individual residents. Women were particularly targeted, their clothes were stripped off and they were beaten on their backs, breasts and other sexual organs.

Several renters were admitted to hospital. The eviction agency continues to prevent the residents from putting up temporary shelter on the sites. In turn, the women, children and elderly have taken refuge in the few remaining homes and the men sleep in the open.185 • The Asian Coalition on Housing Rights reported that 7,075 families (24,763 people) were evicted from their homes in Seoul, South Korea in 1996.186 • Between 1986 and 1996 more than 20 resisting evictees have been killed.187 CESCR: Yes (1990) Const: Yes (art. 35 par. 3)

SUDAN In 1991, Sudan’s Islamic government started implementing Decree No. 941, issued in June 1990 by the National Supreme Council and the Council of Ministers, which states that the slums of Khartoum are to be eradicated. In the ensuing years, thousands of poor families, most of them displaced people from southern Sudan, witnessed the destruction of their homes and were forced to move to the desert communities of Jabbarona (Dar Es-Salaam) and Jebel Awlia, over 20 kilometres from Khartoum. In Hilla Mayo on 22 December 1991, 25 people were killed and many wounded when citizens tried to stop police, army troops and security men from destroying their homes. In a pre-dawn raid on 15 October 1994, government troops and police cordoned off the squatter settlement known as Al-Khuddir in Omdurman, on the Nile just outside Khartoum. They prevented the adult residents from going to work and their children from attending school, and then started destroying houses. Years earlier, large numbers of poor people had come to Al-Khuddir and started building. The local authorities gave priority of residence to those who had come there before 1976; other families who had arrived between 1977 and 1983 were forcibly moved to Thawra, and those who had lived in Al-Khuddir since 1983 were forced to go to Jabbarona. Following this decision, residents reported that rumours and misunderstanding had spread in the area. Some families came under suspicion of having anti-government sympathies, possibly because they opposed the impending demolition. The official media did not report the 15 October raid, but an underground Arabic paper alleged that nine citizens were shot dead, 40 wounded and 400 detained. The casualties were taken to hospital, where some died. The final death-toll was said to be

184 185 186 187

In this region there are an average of 3.5 persons per household.

E-mail from ACHR (27 October 1997).

ACHR, supra note 3 at 1.

Ibid, at 41.

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seventeen. The government operation continued for three days. On the second day, a Sunday, the Christians were prevented from going to church and accused of being rebels. On 18 October, the US embassy in Khartoum issued a State Department statement condemning the violence. It claimed that “armed riot police shot into a crowd of unarmed protesters, which included women and children”; that the incident underscored “the brutality and callousness of the policy of forcible resettlement of squatters in the Khartoum area, which had been proceeding off and on for years”. The US statement concluded that the resettlement sites were often so inhospitable and lacking in basic services and employment opportunities that the relocated people - many of whom had already been displaced by the ravages of drought and/or Sudan’s civil war - were “forced to become dependent on relief aid”. On 21 October 1994, Sudanese newspapers including ‘New Horizon’ printed the predictable official denials and counter-accusations. It was reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that what happened on 15 October was a “normal operation” to remove illegally built shanty houses from Al-Khuddir. Riots had erupted despite the fact that “legal and right procedures” were followed, that “the concerned citizens were informed and given enough time and compensation”. The Ministry, which regretted “the exploitation of the incident by the USA”, claimed an official investigation was underway and expressed the hope that the State Department would confirm the details “from their true sources before issuing statements and accusations”.188 CESCR: Yes (1986) Const: Not Applicable - Constitution is suspended.

THAILAND There are 1,906 slum communities located in Thailand. Of these 1,521 are communities located in Bangkok - where squatters are said to represent a quarter of the total population - 320 are in other provinces and 65 communities are located under bridges. In 1996, 22 of the 65 under-bridge communities were evicted. It is estimated that 21.5% of those residing in Bangkok in 1995 were “squatting” and hence extremely vulnerable to eviction.189 .

• Each month, an average of five demolitions involving some 300 families are reported to take place in Bangkok slums. If the land is owned by the government, no court order is needed to evict the people.

People on private lands are generally given 30-45 days notice of eviction. In many cases, landowners offer them inadequate financial incentives to move out.190 • The Pak Mun Dam in northeast Thailand, completed in November 1994 with 10% funding from the World Bank despite strong local protest, officially affected only 248 families, whose houses and/or farmlands were flooded by the 60-kilometre reservoir. Not one of those families moved to the appointed resettlement site, a forest clearing where the exposed soil turned to sand only weeks after the trees were felled. Before the dam was completed, proponents claimed that there would be no significant impact on fisheries. A government committee later admitted that the project had affected 2,211 families and local villagers insist that 4,000 families all but completely lost their food source and income from fisheries because fish migrations from the Mekong river, which the Mun River joins six kilometres downstream of the dam, were blocked and fishing grounds destroyed. They also lost the food and medicinal plants that grew in forests along the river and the small-scale dry-season agriculture on the river’s exposed alluvium. Following the closure of the sluice gates in June 1994, three years after construction

188 Sudan Catholic Bishop’s Conference (October 1994) News Bulletin.

189 UNDP, supra note 90.

190 ACHR, supra note 3.

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began, fishers reported that all but two types of fish had disappeared from the river. The two remaining types were “pla hua taeg” (fish with crushed head) and “pla mai mee hua” (fish without head).

According to the International Rivers Network, half of the residents of 53 affected villages have moved to urban areas. Prior to the dam’s completion, no reliable information about its probable impact on livelihoods was given to the fishing and farming communities along the Mun, despite their demands for this information. On 27 November 1994, 600 affected villagers occupied the dam site. Within days, their number had swelled to 1,200. This was the culmination of six weeks of protest by local inhabitants, who were demanding compensation of US$1,400 per annum for 30 years. The Minister responsible for the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) responded to these protests by appointing a committee to determine non-financial compensation for the fishers, including new wells, fish ponds and dairy cows. Watcharee Paolaungtong, a Thai NGO activist, commented that the committee was repeating mistakes of previous official bodies by “refusing to accept that the government, EGAT and the World Bank are morally and legally responsible for compensating the Mun River’s fishers.” To date, some villagers living immediately downstream of the dam have received what is considered an inadequate onetime compensation package of US$3,600 per family, while some of those in areas furthest from the dam have been provided with as little as 40 US cents.191 • For most of April 1996, 13,000 protesters, most of them farmers, staged a sit-in outside Government House in Bangkok. This action, called the “Forum of the Poor”, began when villagers from north-eastern provinces came to the capital to protest about forest and land issues, specifically related to dam projects and eucalyptus plantations. They were joined by other protesters, including Bangkok slum-dwellers who had lost their homes as a result of land development. Prime Minister Banharn Silapa-Archa eventually promised to address their complaints and the Cabinet passed resolutions on issues including the granting of land titles, the cancellation of eucalyptus projects, and the payment of compensation for those affected by dam construction.192 CESCR: No Const: No

TURKEY A major factor in Turkey’s rapid urbanization is the persecution and involuntary displacement of segments of the rural population in what is officially described as a “counter-insurgency campaign”. Kurds represent about 25% of Turkey’s population of some 60 million. Since August 1984, when government forces started fighting Kurdish separatists in south-east Turkey, at least 19,000 people have been killed.

In the same period, dozens of Kurdish towns and between 2,000 and 3,000 villages and hamlets have been partially or completely de-populated and/or burned down. The vast majority of those communities were in the 10 Kurdish provinces which have been under a State of Emergency since July 1987 : Tunceli, Bingol, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Batman, Bitlis, Siirt, Sirnak, Van and Hakkari or in the three other provinces subject to the control of the super-prefect in Diyarbakir under State of Emergency provisions.

Prior to their destruction there were an estimated 5,000 villages and hamlets under Emergency Rule.

Official Turkish statements issued in the past three years indicate that of these, nearly 2,400 villages and around 1,500 hamlets have been completely or partially depopulated since 1984. In turn, between 2 and 3 million Kurds have been displaced. Most of these forced evictions of Kurds have taken place since 1992193 and the majority of those who have been evicted have fled to major cities. Because these cities

191 International Rivers Network, (1994) 9:4; (1996) 11:1 World Rivers Review.

192 (1996) May-June The Ecologist.

193 International Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan (IMK) (1995) July-August Kurdistan News; Human Rights Watch/Helsinki (HRW) (June 1996) Turkey’s Failed Policy to Aid the Forcibly Displaced in the Southeast.

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are not adequately equipped to support the influx, 60% of the inhabitants of Ankara, Istanbul and other big cities now live in slums.

Most observers, NGOs and even foreign governments agree that the Turkish government has clearly violated domestic and international law, both in the execution of its campaign and in its failure to provide for displaced people. Many cases considered by the European Court on Human Rights confirm this view.

“National security” considerations tend to override human rights obligations. Turkey’s NATO partners, including the United States, are fully aware of the extent of the human rights violations, yet continue to supply the necessary weapons and other military equipment.194 Generally, the eviction of Kurdish villages have no legal basis, security troops do not provide prior notice and no members of the judiciary are present at the time. Usually, not only people but also their houses, belongings, livestock, foodstuffs, farmland and woodland are targeted. Not infrequently, villagers are summarily executed. The state does not provide food, medical care and alternative shelter for the severely harassed and, in many cases, tortured survivors. They are neither adequately compensated nor offered credit to reorganize their lives. They have no alternative but to seek refuge elsewhere, often with their extended families which exacts a heavy toll on family relations. Many towns and cities in the south-eastern provinces are already seriously overcrowded. In turn, some displaced people cross the border into Kurdish northern Iraq, where their lives continue to be at risk while others head for the big cities of western Turkey or emigrate. State projects to support the victims or return them to their original communities have been, at best, ineffective and, at worst, complete fiascos. To make matters worse, international aid organizations including the UNHCR and the ICRC are not permitted to assist displaced persons within Turkey.

In general, villages and hamlets are destroyed for one or more of the following reasons: (i) in retaliation for attacks on the Turkish military by guerillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, or other Kurdish movements, irrespective of whether inhabitants are connected to the party or its attacks; (ii) during military operations, with the aim of depriving the guerillas of logistical support and recruitment possibilities; and (iii) because inhabitants refuse to become ‘village guards’ -- paramilitaries armed and paid by the state to combat the guerillas.

One Turkish human rights organization has listed the names of at least 530 villages and hamlets partially or completely depopulated in 1994, more than 330 of them in June to December. The 1995 figure is at least 180.195 As the incidents are too numerous for exhaustive reference, what follows are some illustrative examples.

• In the autumn of 1994, in the region traditionally known as Dersim (Tunceli province and three neighbouring districts of Bingol province), Turkish security troops, numbering 40,000 according to government sources, used extreme force to evacuate about one third of all rural communities and burn vast areas of forest nature reserve. The pretext was that a few thousand guerillas of the PKK and other smaller movements were launching attacks from forest hide-outs and receiving food and shelter from vil194 HRW (November 1995) Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey.

195 Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD)(June 1996) The Burned and Evacuated Settlement Units.

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lagers. In Tunceli province alone, 137 of the 399 villages were partially or completely evacuated and/or destroyed by fire in the period September to November 1994.

• The Tunceli area has also been prey to a large number of evictions more recently, with 150 of its remaining 262 villages (leaving only 112 villages in the area) having been evicted by the State since 1994.

Villagers believe the State is trying to wipe Tunceli off the map because amongst the tens of thousands living in Tunceli there are approximately 400 PKK militants residing in the region.196 • In Bingol province, 37 villages were seriously affected in the autumn of 1994 evictions. Government spokespersons admitted that a total of 1,200 households had been rendered homeless. The real figure was probably at least twice as high. Ovacik and Hozat districts of Tunceli province were particularly badly hit. 18 of the 29 villages in Ovacik district were partially or completely evacuated and/or burned down. In Hozat district, 37 of the 45 villages (or 82%) were affected. Subsequent attempts by local leaders to complain to the authorities in Ankara resulted in cynical denials of state responsibility and, in some cases, detention.197 In just three days, for example, the following atrocities were reported from Ovacik district: On 4 October, military units burned down the villages of Tepsili (Mekikusagi), Egrikavak (Kalikusagi), Kusluca (Derik), Bilgec (Bitgec), Elgazi and Halitpinar, as well as Kizilvere (Kisilviran) hamlet in Hanusagi village. The day after, Sahverdi and Yarimkaya (Hemzikusagi) villages were destroyed. On the third day, the villages of Isikvuran (Harsi), Cat and Buzlutepe (Kakbil) were razed. In each case, as no warning was given and villagers’ belongings were destroyed. 5 of these 12 villages were partially or completely evacuated. Inhabitants of 30 other villages in the area fled in panic.

A total of 480 refugee families sought shelter in Ovacik town. Afterwards, 300 heads of families filed a complaint with the district State Prosecutor and charges with the District Council. The results are as yet unclear.198 On 5 October 1994, Turkey’s President Suleyman Demirel responded to pressure from the deputy speaker in parliament and local authorities by ordering an inquiry into the forced evacuation of at least 17 villages in Tunceli province199 • On 27 April 1995, Turkish military units set fire to villages in Sason district of Batman province, including Sexika (Aydinlik), Pirmis (Yeni Cakmak) and Heliz (Capli). The villagers had previously been violently expelled from their homes. Many of them were temporarily detained. The inhabitants refused to become ‘village guards’. The military allowed the people of Sexika and Pirmis to leave their villages, but the inhabitants of Heliz were given no such permission.200 • On 10 June 1995, Turkish newspapers including Cumhuriyet reported that then Interior Minister, Nahit Mentese, stated that 58 villages and 155 hamlets in Diyarbakir province had been completely evacuated, and another 24 villages and 18 hamlets partially evacuated. In response to a question in parliament, the minister said 36,389 inhabitants of those settlements were forced to migrate to the towns of Adana and Diyarbakir.201 • In early July 1995, it was reported that, on 5-6 July 1995, Turkish military units supported by combat aircraft and armored vehicles had penetrated up to 15 kilometres into Kurdish northern Iraq. They reportedly shelled seven villages: Shivey, Mieroz, Spindar, Bossey, Pindrou, Dizo and Bizhyan. Iraqi

196 IMK Kurdistan News (November 1996) at 5.

197 SNK(March 1995) Forced Evictions and Destruction of Villages in Dersim (Tunceli) and the Western Part of Bingol, Turkish Kurdistan, September-November 1994.

198 IMK (1996) June Fact Sheet.

199 Cumhuriyet cited in (1994) October NRC Handelsblad; SNK (1994) October Koerdistan Koerier.

200 IMK (1995) 13 Kurdistan News and Fact Sheet supra note 193.

201 IMK (1995) 14 Kurdistan News.

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Kurdish sources later said that 2,500 Kurdish civilians had fled from 18 villages in the area of the operation.202 • In October 1995, the Mayor of the provincial capital of Hakkari, said urgent measures were necessary to prevent social explosions in his municipality and others swelled by forced migration. He said that in a short period of time the population of Hakkari town had grown from 35,000 to 90,000. In December, Anatolia news agency reported that some 45,000 people forcibly evacuated from 46 villages had migrated to Hakkari town.203 • In February 1996, several Turkish newspapers reported that in the weeks following the elections of 24 December 1995, more than 6,000 security troops had taken part in operation “Iron Fist” employing heavy intimidation tactics to evacuate 70 to 80 villages in areas inhabited mainly by Kurdish Alevi Muslims (Alevites) in the Central Anatolian provinces of Sivas and Erzincan, adjacent to the Kurdish part of south-east Turkey covered by the State of Emergency. Hardest hit were Imranli, Zara, Hafik, Kangal and Divrigi districts, west and north-west of Dersim (Tunceli). The population of Divrigi district was reported to have been reduced from 20,000 to 5,000. In a four-month period, more than 500 people were temporarily detained. Confirming this, the Governor of Sivas officially disclosed that 63 villages had been evacuated and 300 others sealed off from the outside world. In an interview the Governor justified the harsh measures on the grounds that a Kurdish rebellion in March 1921 “originated in this very region”, an absurd rationale given that the very limited PKK activity in the region in the weeks prior to “Iron Fist” could hardly have warranted such a severe response. Most observers agreed that the true aim of the Iron Fist operation was ethnic cleansing, that is to forcibly displace Kurdish Alevites.204 • The village of Dilek in Dargecit/Markdin was forcibly evacuated, reportedly for security reasons, at the beginning of April 1996. Most of the 150 inhabitants of the village migrated to Dargecit.205 • On 26 May 1996 in Diyarbakir, the Governor of the Region under a State of Emergency, reported that within the region a total of 918 villages (706 wholly and 212 partially) and 1,767 hamlets (1,592 wholly and 175 partially) had been evacuated for various reasons and a total of 329,916 people had been forcibly evicted. In most cases the evictees were unable to return to their homes.206 • On 28 September 1996 a military vehicle was reportedly blown up outside the village of Harabetuwa (Ozen) in Idil/Sirnak close to the Syrian border, killing several soldiers. In response, the security forces subsequently raided the village and detained some 80 villagers, then took them to an undisclosed location. They ordered the village to be evacuated by the evening of 2 October, otherwise it would be razed to the ground. It is thought that the detained villagers were taken to military barracks in Idil. Under emergency legislation in force in Sirnak province they can be held for up to 30 days. Harabetuwa, home for 170 families, has been raided and searched repeatedly by the security forces over the last five years.207 • 444 peasants were evicted from their homes in Ovacik when the Turkish army burned down their villages in early October, 1996.

202 203 204 205 206 207

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IMK (1995) 15, 16 Kurdistan News.

IMK(1995) 18, 19, 20 Kurdistan News.

Ibid. and (1996) 21, 22 Kurdistan News; SNK Koerdistan Koerier (February 1996).

IMK (1996) June Kurdistan News at 3.

IMK(1996) May - June Kurdistan News at 4.

IMK, supra note 205 at 4.

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• The Roma in Turkey have also been discriminated against with respect to housing and subject to eviction. On a mission to collect information on the situation of Roma in Turkey, the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) discovered that the so-called nomadic Roma were being repeatedly forcibly evicted from their homes. In Turkey, many poor Roma families of six or seven often live in structures made of wood, plastic and cardboard. Many are forced to lead a nomadic lifestyle as most families cannot afford to pay rent for a house (social assistance is almost absent in Turkey) and, as a result, in many instances they are forced to leave villages. The ERRC interviewed one family who described the process of eviction. The police come, take all the men, and give the women several hours to pack their things. Then the police return with a bulldozer and destroy the rest. The men are then released and they rebuild their tents in the same place or elsewhere.

CESCR: No Const: Yes (art. 57)

UNITED STATES In a study released on 14 March 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported that, in 1993, 5.3 million households in the US spent more than half their income on housing or lived in very sub-standard housing. This figure, an increase of 1.5 million since 1978, includes almost 2 million working households and nearly 1.2 million with an elderly head-of-household. Between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, the HUD budget was almost halved to less than US$20 billion. In the same period, the Justice Department’s budget increased by 600% - with a large portion going to prison construction - and the military continued to receive over US$266 billion, more than 10 times as much as the HUD. Unfortunately, nation wide statistics regarding the number of forced evictions that occur each year in the United States of America are currently not available. In turn, what follows are some examples of the types of evictions that occur in the richest country in the world.

Arizona • A homeless shantytown that housed approximately 100 people, located at the foot of “A” mountain in Tucson, Arizona was shut down by city council in March 1996. This decision was based on complaints made by neighbours regarding sanitation at the camp and the threat to privacy and safety that the camp ostensibly posed to neighbouring residents. Assistance with relocation was provided by the Community Services Department but those who refused to be interviewed and assisted by this government office, were given a 72 hour eviction notice after which the police enforced the trespassing law.208

Georgia • In the run-up to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia more than 10,000 city residents living in public and private housing lost their homes. Many were removed from downtown areas, the primary site for the Olympics. To “get Atlanta ready”, every able-bodied person was brought into service, usually in a minimum-wage job with no benefits and no future beyond the opening of the Games. Many of those workers have been housed in what are little more than detention centres, camouflaged jails for those without decent jobs, displaced from affordable public and private housing. Over 1,000 people were displaced when Techwood Homes, located on prime real estate between Coca Cola’s international headquarters and the Georgia Institute of Technology, was demolished, ostensibly to make way for part of the Olympic Village. Techwood was the country’s oldest public housing developments, dedicated by President F.D. Roosevelt in 1935. Most of Techwood’s inhabitants were African

208 Joe Burchell, “Council shuts down “A” Mountain shantytown” Arizona Daily Star (March 1996).

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American women and children living well below the poverty line. Leading members of the community were relocated in single-family houses while the less fortunate received “Section 8 vouchers” for rented apartments. As there is a serious shortage of decent public housing, the holders have necessarily had difficulty relocating and with their vouchers soon to expire, many will be left without access to affordable and adequate housing. In the summer of 1994, Techwood residents had been told that the Olympic Village facilities would be turned over to Georgia State University after the Games. They were later informed that the facilities would be converted to housing for mixed-income tenants. Finally, it emerged in the press that the construction project had been cancelled and the former Techwood site was to be used for vehicle parking during the Olympics. The actions of city and Olympic officials suggest that, once the housing for low-income tenants had been removed from the prime down-town development site, the long-term issue of relocating those displaced to new housing was put on hold. The most optimistic rumour circulating at the time of writing was that new housing for mixed-income tenants is to be built by 1998. The least optimistic was that the Techwood site was sold to Japanese property developers.209

New York • On 30 May 1995, the New York City Police deployed an armoured vehicle and 400 to 500 officers in riot gear to break through barricades and help evict squatters from two East Village tenements. Most of the squatters and their assembled sympathizers yielded peacefully, though 31 people were arrested.

According to Mayor Guiliani and other city officials, the show of police force was necessary to insure the safety of the Buildings Department employees who carried out the actual evictions. For nearly nine months, the squatters had been resisting government attempts to remove them from the city properties at 541 and 545 East 13th Street. They claimed a right to stay basing their claim on the legal principle of “adverse possession”, arguing that they had been occupying the once-abandoned buildings continuously for up to 10 years without the city formally objecting or serving a notice to vacate. They had even tried to have the buildings rehabilitated. For months, the city had been trying to secure the right to retake five buildings on the block. Six days before the evictions, the Appellate Court ruled that two of the buildings must be cleared as inspectors believed they were unsafe. This overturned an April 1995 ruling that evictions could not be based on safety considerations. Unlike other city-owned buildings in the Bronx and elsewhere, taken over by poor immigrants and the homeless, the East 13th Street buildings were occupied by well-educated bohemians in what was partly a protest against New York City’s housing policy. The city had taken ownership of the dilapidated properties when previous owners defaulted on tax payments. For years, it took no action against the hundreds of squatters living in such buildings across the city. City officials claimed the mass evictions of 30 May 1995 were justified on the grounds that thousands of people were on waiting lists for low-rent apartments. Afterwards, they said they would continue a legal battle, started in November 1994 in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, to gain broader rights to evict squatters.210

Ohio Laws that criminalize homelessness are becoming increasingly popular across the United States. In a study carried out by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP) which examined local government actions regarding homelessness in 49 cities in the United States, the NLCHP found that 42 of the cities attempted to make illegal some activities associated with homelessness such as loitering in public spaces.

209 National Centre for Human Rights Education, Walda Katz-Fishman & Jerome Scott (1996) A People’s Story of Atlanta and the Centennial Olympic Games.

210 Shawn G. Kennedy, The New York Times (31 May 1995).

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• In Cleveland for example, beyond outlawing panhandling and the selling of the Homeless Grapevine (a newspaper by and about Cleveland’s street people), a local newspaper reported that in late December 1994 Cleveland police officers physically removed some homeless men from a public square and drove them to a remote, industrial area where they were left.211

Texas • In June 1997 ten homes in Hurst, a Dallas suburb, were seized by “eminent domain”212 because a developer wanted the land cleared to build an extension to a shopping mall. The developer needed to buy 127 homes so it could expand the mall with a series of upscale stores. When 10 property owners refused, the developer urged the Hurst City Council to condemn the 10 homes, which it did. Claiming that the shopping mall extension was for the public, the city paid fair market value for the homes, forced the owners out and successfully demolished the entire neighbourhood. Rather than battling bulldozers, the residents moved out on their own. Some of the residents had lived in the neighbourhood for more than 18 years. In response to their eviction, the homeowners launched a lawsuit challenging the legislation that allowed the city to condemn their homes.213 CESCR: No, signed not ratified.

Const: No

ZIMBABWE It is government policy that no people be evicted from the land they were occupying until an alternative settlement is sought, and adequate notice has to be given.214 Tony Gara, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development On coming to power in 1980, the present ZANU (PF) government promised that any Zimbabwean could go or stay wherever he or she wished. Despite this guarantee evictions continue to occur at an alarming rate throughout Zimbabwe. Because authorities refuse to ensure that land is available, those who are desperate for shelter have resorted to settling wherever they can. In turn, the government has taken to demolishing these “illegal” homes. Additionally, visits by international dignitaries, and developers often trigger city clean-ups (to disguise Zimbabwe’s poverty) and this leads to mass evictions of “squatters”, “illegal settlers” and the homeless.215 UPDATE: COHRE’s Global Survey of Forced Evictions No. 5 reported that prior to a visit by Queen Elizabeth II to the 1991 Commonwealth Heads of State summit in Harare, 600 squatters were moved from the Epworth area of the outskirts to Porta Farm, a holding camp some 30 kilometres outside the capital. This was part of a general clean-up affecting a total of 2,500 people and designed to avoid “severe embarrassment to the Queen”. According to ZimRights, many of those people were still without proper homes four years after the Commonwealth Summit, despite official promises that permanent housing would be provided. Some had been moved to another holding camp, Dzivaresekwa Extension, where overcrowded conditions posed a serious health threat. At one point, a ZANU (PF) district chairman said six or seven people were dying every week. Residents set up a housing cooperative with a monthly membership fee of Z$152. One member complained that, while donor countries had given

211 Paul Shepard “Advocates say Cleveland hard on homeless” The Plain Dealer (16 December 1994).

212 Eminent domain refers to the right of the government to seize private property for public use. It is usually employed for public projects such as the building of highways orschools.

213 National Public Radio, Bill Zeeble and Bob Edwards “Morning Edition” (26 June 1997).

214 The Herald (29 August 1995).

215 Letter from Pesanai Mazambani, Housing Rights in Zimbabwe (13 February 1997).

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Zimbabwe a lot of aid to build houses for ‘squatters’, no such dwelling had yet been seen. Meanwhile, those still at Porta Farm face a second eviction on the dubious grounds that they posed a health hazard to the inhabitants of Harare.216 • UPDATE: In COHRE’s Global Survey on Forced Evictions No. 6 it was reported that in November 1993, armed riot police evicted some 20,000 residents from Churu Farm, Harare. In August 1994, Zimbabwe’s leading independent human rights organization, ZimRights, reported that the High Court had ordered the remaining Churu Farm residents to leave by mid-October. A group of dwellers then formed Shelclof, an association with the aim of assisting members to acquire shelter, clothing and food.

Eventually under unclear circumstances the members of Shelfloc were evicted form the land. According to ZimRights, in 1994 some 500 former Churu Farm residents were forcibly moved to Nyangombe Refugee Camp, only to be evicted from there two months later and told to return to their original rural homes, where there was no infrastructure to support them. Most of them ended up in Harare’s ramshackle squatter settlements or on the streets, where they joined thousands of others evicted from private and government farms, desperately poor and disenfranchised. In August 1995, the Town Clerk threatened to have their makeshift plastic shacks in the capital demolished. Meanwhile, their property at Churu Farm was destroyed and looted under the noses of, or with the aid of police guards, the ‘empty’ farm having been leased to the Council. 217 • On 11 June 1994, Licence Inspectorate Police seriously assaulted three people while trying, for the third time in two weeks, to evict squatters from Kenneth Kaunda Avenue railway station in Harare. One of those assaulted was arrested after questioning the authority of the police to evict him. A senior officer later denied that violence had been used. On 19 June, the police moved in again to evict the squatters, destroying some of their belongings in the process.218 • ZimRights reported in August 1995 that about 1,500 men, women and children were without roofs over their heads after being evicted, with government support, from Chiwiti, Gampuli and Nyamatsito farms near Chinhoyi, where they had settled and planted crops for three rainy seasons. One person was shot dead and another seriously injured during the eviction. The settlers’ huts and property were destroyed and their dogs killed. No alternative accommodation was provided. Instead, after spending weeks by the roadside, the evicted people were simply put in government trucks and dumped in various locations. Delegations sent to the offices of the Vice-President and the Minister of Local Government were referred back to provincial and district officials, who told them to go to their original homes. The homeless countered that those sites had been developed and, in any case, they had come to Chiwiti, Gampuli and Nyamatsito farms pursuing a promise, made at the end of the liberation war, that they could return to their ancestral homes.219 • ZimRights also reported that 400 families were evicted from Madziwa by the rural district council on the grounds that they had settled there illegally. The council had obtained a High Court ruling to evict them. The affected families were not present when the decision was handed down. Most poor rural families have little to no knowledge of the justice system or court procedures in Zimbabwe. Many of the affected families bought the land from a local headman and others were resettled legally on the land.

Most had occupied the land for five years and had been paying a development levy (a form of tax) to

216 Zimbabwean Human Rights Association (ZHRA), (1995) January - April and (1996) January ZimRights News. See: “Zimbabwe” in Section 3, below.

217 ZHRA, ZimRights News, Ibid.; (Aug. 1994, May - June 1995, July 1995, August 1995).

218 ZHRA, (1994) July ZimRights News.

219 ZHRA, (1995) August ZimRights News.

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the council. At the time of the eviction, over 50% of the families were headed by older and sick persons. ZimRights discovered that the district council was fully cognizant that the land was being occupied at the outset but failed to take action to prevent t the families from settling on the land.220 • In early June 1997, the Herald reported that more than 200 squatters were moved from Hatcliffe Farm to the Hatcliffe Extension Holding Camp to make way for the building of a boarding, secondary school for the children of police officers. The squatters were taken to the holding camp in police trucks.

The eviction was further complicated by the fact that former squatters who were already residing in the Holding Camp did not want more squatters to join them, insisting that the Harare City Council should provide more water and sanitary facilities before they moved in. As it stands the Holding Camp is on the brink of a health disaster with pit latrines full, and at least one roadway completely blocked with garbage.221 CESCR: Yes (1991) Const: No

220 ZHRA, 28 November 1996 Urgent Appeal 221 “Squatters moved to make way for police school” The Herald (13 June 1997)

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3 General Comment No. 7 on Forced Evictions

This General Comment was adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in May 1997. It is the most far-reaching interpretive international standard on forced eviction to emerge from the UN to date with provisions that go well beyond those contained in the Habitat Agenda.

Although numerous UN resolutions have condemned the practice of forced eviction as a gross violation of human rights, the General Comment Eviction Scene, Nairobi © The Nation goes even further by demanding that the State refrain from forced evictions and ensure that the law is enforced against its agents or third parties who carry out forced evictions. This means that, in addition to governments, private landlords, developers and international institutions such as the World Bank are obliged not to forcibly evict people from their homes. COHRE believes that if General Comment No. 7 is used by those involved in the struggle to prevent forced evictions, States parties to the Covenant may find it more difficult to rationalize the practice of forced eviction as their legal footing to do so is now on shaky ground. The full text of the General Comment follows.

GENERAL COMMENT No. 7 (1997): The right to adequate housing (Art. 11 (1) of the Covenant): forced evictions 1. In its General Comment No. 4 (1991), the Committee observed that all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. It concluded that forced evictions are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant. Having considered a significant number of reports of forced evictions in recent years, including instances in which it has determined that the obligations of States parties were being violated, the Committee is now in a position to seek to provide further clarification as to the implications of such practices in terms of the obligations contained in the Covenant.

2. The International community has long recognised that the issue of forced evictions is a serious one.

In 1976 the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements noted that “major clearance operations should take place only when conservation and rehabilitation are not feasible and relocation measures are made”.1 In the 1988 Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000, the General Assembly recognized the “fundamental obligation (of Governments) to protect and improve houses and neighbourhoods, rather than damage or destroy them”.2

1 2

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Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, (1976) Sec. III (8) General Assembly resolution 43/181, Annex, Point 13.

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Agenda 21 stated that “people should be protected by law against unfair eviction from their homes or land”.3 In the Habitat Agenda Governments committed themselves to “protecting all people from, and providing legal protection and redress for, forced evictions that are contrary to the law, taking human rights into consideration; [and] when evictions are unavoidable, ensuring, as appropriate, that alternative suitable solutions are provided”.4 The Commission on Human Rights has also indicated that “forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights”.5 However, although these statements are important, they leave open one of the most critical issues, namely that of determining the circumstances under which forced evictions are permissible and of spelling out the types of protection required to ensure respect for the relevant provisions of the Covenant.

3. The use of the term “forced evictions” is, in some respects, problematic. This expression seeks to convey a sense of arbitrariness and of illegality. To many observers, however, the reference to “forced evictions” is a tautology, while others have criticized the expression “illegal evictions” on the ground that it assumes that the relevant law provides adequate protection to the right to housing and conforms with the Covenant, which is by no means always the case. Similarly, it has been suggested that the term “unfair evictions” is even more subjective by virtue of its failure to refer to any legal framework at all.

The international community, especially in the context of the Commission on Human Rights, has opted to refer to “forced evictions” primarily since all suggested alternatives also suffer from many such defects.

4. The term “forced evictions” as used throughout this General Comment is defined as the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection. The prohibition on forced evictions does not, however, apply to evictions carried out by force in accordance with the law and in conformity with the provisions of the International Human Rights Covenants.

5. The practice of forced evictions is widespread and affects persons in both developed and developing countries. Owing to the interrelation and interdependency which exist among all human rights, forced evictions frequently violate other human rights. Thus, while manifestly breaching the rights enshrined in the Covenant, the practice of forced evictions may also result in violations of civil and political rights, such as the right to life, the right to security of the person, the right to non-interference with privacy, family and home and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions.

6. Although the practice of forced evictions might appear to arise primarily in heavily populated urban areas, it also takes place in relation to forced population transfers, internal displacement, forced relocations in the context of armed conflict, mass exoduses and refugee movements. In all of these contexts, the right to adequate housing and not to be subject to forced evictions may be violated through a wide range of acts or omissions attributable to States parties. Even in situations where it may be necessary to 3 4 5

Agenda 21, Chapter 7.9 (b).

Habitat Agenda, para. 40 (n).

Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/77, para.1.

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impose limitations on such a right, full compliance with Article 4 of the Covenant is required so that any limitations imposed must be “determined by law only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights [i.e. economic, social and cultural] and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society.”

7. Many instances of forced evictions are associated with violence, such as evictions resulting from international armed conflicts, internal strife and communal or ethnic violence.

8. Other instances of forced evictions occur in the name of development. They might be carried out in connection with conflicts over land rights, development and infrastructure projects, such as the construction of dams or other large-scale energy projects, with land acquisition measures associated with urban renewal, housing renovation, city beautification programmes, the clearing of land for agricultural purposes, unbridled speculation in land, or the holding of major sporting events like the Olympic Games.

9. In essence, the obligations of States parties to the Covenant in relation to forced evictions are based on Article 11(1), read in conjunction with other relevant provisions. In particular, Article 2(1) obliges States to use “all appropriate means” to promote the right to adequate housing. However, in view of the nature of the practice of forced evictions, the reference to Article 2(1) to progressive achievement based on the availability of resources will rarely be relevant. The State itself must refrain from forced evictions and ensure that the law is enforced against its agents or third parties who carry out forced evictions (as defined in para. 3 above). Moreover, this approach is reinforced by Article 17(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which complements the right not to be forcefully evicted without adequate protection. That provision recognises, inter alia, the right to be protected against “arbitrary or unlawful interference” with one’s home. It is to be noted that the State’s obligation to ensure respect for that right is not qualified by considerations relating to its available resources.

10. Article 2(1) of the Covenant requires States parties to use “all appropriate means”, including the adoption of legislative measures, to promote all the rights protected under the Covenant. Although the Committee has indicated in its General Comment No.3 (1991) that such measures may not be indispensable in relation to all rights, it is clear that legislation against forced evictions is an essential basis upon which to build a system of effective protection. Such legislation should include measures which (a) provide the greatest possible security of tenure to occupiers of houses and land, (b) conform to the Covenant and (c) are designed to control strictly the circumstances under which evictions may be carried out. The legislation must also apply in relation to all agents acting under the authority of the State or who are accountable to it. Moreover, in view of the increasing trend in some States towards the government greatly reducing their responsibilities in the housing sector, States parties must ensure that legislative and other measures are adequate to prevent and, if appropriate, punish forced evictions carried out without appropriate safeguards, by private persons or bodies. States parties should therefore review relevant legislation and policies to ensure that these are compatible with the obligations arising from the right to adequate housing and to repeal or amend any legislation or policies that are inconsistent with the requirements of the Covenant.

11. Women, children, youth, older persons, indigenous people, ethnic and other minorities, and other vulnerable individuals and groups all suffer disproportionately from the practice of forced evictions.

Women in all groups are especially vulnerable given the extent to statutory and other forms of discrimination which often apply in relation to property rights (including home ownership) or rights of access to property or accommodation and their particular vulnerability to acts of violence and sexual abuse when they are rendered homeless. The non-discrimination provisions of Articles 2(2) and 3 of the Covenant

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impose an additional obligation upon governments to ensure that, where evictions do occur, appropriate measures are taken to ensure that no forms of discrimination are involved.

12. Where some evictions may be justifiable, such as in the case of the persistent non-payment of rent or of damage to rented property without any reasonable cause, it is incumbent upon the relevant authorities to ensure that those evictions are carried out in a manner warranted by a law which is compatible with the Covenant and that all the legal recourses and remedies are available to those affected.

13. Forced evictions and house demolitions as a punitive measure are also inconsistent with the norms of the Covenant. Likewise, the Committee takes note of the obligations enshrined within the 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Protocols which relate to prohibitions on the displacement of the civilian population and the destruction of private property as these relate to the practice of forced evictions.

14. States parties shall ensure, prior to carrying out any evictions, and particularly those involving large groups, that all feasible alternatives are explored in consultation with affected persons, with a view to avoiding, or at least minimizing, the need to use force. Legal remedies or procedures should be provided to those who are affected by eviction orders. States parties shall also see to it that all individuals concerned have a right to adequate compensation for any property, both personal and real, which is affected. In this respect, it is pertinent to recall article 2(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which requires States Parties to ensure “an effective remedy” for persons whose rights have been violated and the obligation upon the “competent authorities (to) enforce such remedies when granted”.

15. In cases where eviction is considered to be justified, it should be carried out in strict compliance with the relevant provisions of international human rights law and in accordance with general principles of reasonableness and proportionality. In this regard it is especially pertinent to recall General Comment 16 by the Human Rights Committee, relating to Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that interference with a person’s home can only take place “in cases envisaged by the law”. The Committee observed that the law “should be in accordance with the provisions, aims and objectives of the Covenant and should be, in any event, reasonable in the particular circumstances”. The Committee also indicated that “relevant legislation must specify in details the precise circumstances in which such interferences may be permitted”.

16. Appropriate procedural protection and due process are essential aspects of all human rights but it is especially pertinent in relation to a matter such as forced evictions which directly invokes a large number of the rights recognised in both International Human Rights Covenants. The Committee considers that the procedural protections which should be applied in relation to forced evictions include: (a) an opportunity for genuine consultation with those affected; (b) adequate and reasonable notice for all affected persons prior to the scheduled date of eviction; (c) information on the proposed evictions and where applicable, on the alternative purpose for which the land or housing is to be used, to be made available in reasonable time to all those affected; (d) especially where groups of people are involved, government officials or their representatives to be present during an eviction; (e) all persons carrying out the eviction to be properly identified; (f) evictions not to take place in particularly bad weather or at night unless the affected persons consent otherwise; (g) provision of legal remedies; and (h) provision, where possible, of legal aid to persons who are in need of it to seek redress from the courts.

17. Evictions should not result in rendering individuals homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State party must take all

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appropriate measures, to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available.

18. The Committee is aware that various development projects financed by international agencies within the territories of State parties have resulted in forced evictions. In this regard, the Committee recalls its General Comment No.2 (1990) which states, inter alia, that “international agencies should scrupulously avoid involvement in projects which, for example ... promote or reinforce discrimination against individuals or groups contrary to the provisions of the Covenant, or involve large-scale evictions or displacement of person without the provision of all appropriate protection and compensation. Every effort should be made, at each phase of a development project, to ensure that the rights contained in the Covenant are duly taken into account”.6 19. Some institutions, such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have adopted guidelines on relocation and/or resettlement with a view to limiting the scale and human suffering associated with the practice of forced eviction. Such practices often accompany large-scale development projects, such as dam-building and other major energy projects. Full respect for such guidelines, in so far as they reflect the obligations contained in the Covenant, on the part of both the agencies themselves and by States parties to the Covenant is essential. The committee recalls in this respect that statement in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action to the effect that “while development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgement of internationally recognised human rights” (para. 10).

20. In accordance with the guidelines adopted by the Committee for reporting, State parties are requested to provide various types of information pertaining directly to the practice of forced evictions.

This includes information relating to (a) the “number of persons evicted within the last five years and the number of persons currently lacking legal protection against arbitrary eviction or any other kind of eviction”; (b) “legislation concerning the rights of tenants to security of tenure, to protection from eviction” and (c) “legislation prohibiting any form of eviction”.7 21. Information is also sought as to “measures taken during, inter alia, urban renewal programmes, redevelopment projects, site upgrading, preparation for international events (Olympics and other sporting competitions, exhibitions, conferences, etc.) ‘beautiful city’ campaigns, etc. which guarantee protection from eviction or guarantee rehousing based on mutual consent, by any persons living on or near to affected sites”.8 Despite these provisions, few States parties have included the requisite information in their reports to the Committee. The Committee, therefore, wishes to emphasise in this regard the importance it attaches to the receipt of such information.

22. Some States parties have indicated that information of this nature is not available. The Committee recalls that effective monitoring of the right to adequate housing, either by the Government concerned or by the Committee, is not possible in the absence of the collection of appropriate data and would request all States parties to ensure that the necessary data is collected and is reflected in the reports submitted by them under the Covenant.

6 7 8

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UN doc. E/1990/23, paras. 6 and 8.

E/C.12/1990/8, Annex IV. Id.

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4 Comprehensive Human Rights Guidelines on Development-Based Displacement

In June 1997, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights convened an Expert Seminar on Forced Evictions to develop a set of comprehensive human rights guidelines on development based displacement. A report of the meeting can be found in UN doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/7 (Expert Seminar on the practice of forced evictions, Report of the Secretary-General).

The meeting succeeded in this endeavour with the adoption of innovative and practical Eviction Viction in Nairobi, Kenya. © The Nation, Nairobi principles on forced evictions and human rights which were drafted by independent experts from the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, and South Africa. All of the experts have had hands-on-experience in resisting forced evictions, litigating to prevent forced evictions and developing new laws to protect people from this practice. The Guidelines both support and move even beyond the expansive protections included in General Comment No. 7. The COHRE Director was elected as Rapporteur of the gathering, while COHRE’s Women’s Programme Coordinator also participated extensively in this drafting exercise.

These guidelines were welcomed by the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in August 1998 in a resolution entitled ‘forced evictions’ and will be reviewed for possible adoption by the Commission on Human Rights in April 1999. The full text of the Comprehensive Guidelines follows.

THE PRACTICE OF FORCED EVICTIONS: COMPREHENSIVE HUMAN RIGHTS GUIDELINES ON DEVELOPMENT-BASED DISPLACEMENT Preamble The expert seminar on forced evictions, Recalling the human rights standards established pursuant to the International Bill of Human Rights, Whereas many international treaties, resolutions, decisions, general comments, judgments and other texts have recognized and reaffirmed that forced evictions constitute violations of a wide range of internationally recognized human rights, Recalling Economic and Social Council decision 1996/290, Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1993/77, and Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities resolution 1996/27,

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Reaffirming that under international law every State has the obligation to respect and ensure respect for human rights and humanitarian law, including obligations to prevent violations, to investigate violations, to take appropriate action against violators, and to afford remedies and reparation to victims, Reaffirming that development is a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting therefrom, Whereas the Vienna Declaration and Plan of Action stipulated that while development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgment of internationally recognized human rights, Recognizing the widespread nature of the practice of forced evictions and that when forced evictions are carried out this can occur in a variety of contexts including but not limited to conflicts over land rights, development and infrastructure projects, such as the construction of dams or other large-scale energy projects, land acquisition measures associated with urban renewal, housing renovation, city beautification programmes, the clearing of land for agricultural purposes or macro-urban projects, unbridled speculation in land, and the holding of major international events such as the Olympic Games, Conscious that forced evictions intensify social conflict and inequality and invariably affect the poorest, most socially, economically, and vulnerable sectors of society, specifically women, children, and indigenous peoples, Conscious also of guidelines developed by international financial and other institutions on involuntary displacement and resettlement, Resolved to protect human rights and prevent violations due to the practice of forced evictions,

I. BACKGROUND ISSUES Scope and Nature of the Guidelines 1. The present Guidelines address the human rights implications of the practice of forced evictions associated with development-based displacement in urban and rural areas. The Guidelines reflect and are consistent with international human rights law and international humanitarian law and should be subject to the widest possible application.

2. Having due regard to all relevant definitions of the practice of forced evictions under international human rights provisions and instruments, the present Guidelines apply to instances of forced evictions in which there are acts and/or omissions involving the coerced and involuntary removal of individuals, groups and communities from their homes and/or lands and common property resources they occupy or are dependent upon, thus eliminating or limiting the possibility of an individual, group or community residing or working in a particular dwelling, residence or place.

3. While there are many similarities between the practice of forced evictions and internal displacement, population transfer, mass expulsions, mass exodus, ethnic cleansing and other practices involving the coerced and involuntary movement of people from their homes, lands and communities, forced evictions

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constitute a distinct practice under international law. Persons, groups and communities subjected to or threatened with forced evictions form, therefore, a distinct group under international human rights law.

4. Forced evictions constitute prima facie violations of a wide range of internationally recognized human rights and can only be carried out under exceptional circumstances and in full accordance with the present Guidelines and relevant provisions of international human rights law.

II. GENERAL OBLIGATIONS 5. While forced evictions can be carried out, sanctioned, demanded, proposed, initiated or tolerated by a variety of distinct actors, responsibility for forced evictions under international law, ultimately, is held

by States. This does not, however, relieve other entities from obligations in this regard, in particular occupying powers, international financial and other institutions or organizations, transnational corporations and individual third parties, including public and private landlords or land owners.

6. States should apply appropriate civil or criminal penalties against any person or entity, within its jurisdiction, whether public or private, who carries out any forced evictions, not in full conformity with applicable law and the present Guidelines.

7. States should object, through the appropriate international legal mechanisms, to the carrying out of forced evictions in other States when such forced evictions are not in full conformity with the present Guidelines and relevant provisions of international human rights law.

8. States should ensure that international organizations in which they are represented refrain from sponsoring or implementing any project, programme or policy which may involve the carrying out of forced evictions not in full conformity with international law and the present Guidelines.

III. SPECIFIC PREVENTATIVE OBLIGATIONS The Obligation of Maximum Effective Protection 9. States should secure by all appropriate means, including the provision of security of tenure, the maximum degree of effective protection against the practice of forced evictions for all persons under their jurisdiction. In this regard, special consideration should be given to the rights of indigenous peoples, children and women, particularly female-headed households and other vulnerable groups. These obligations are of an immediate nature and are not qualified by resource-related considerations.

10. States should refrain from introducing any deliberately retrogressive measures with respect to de jure or de facto protection against forced evictions.

11. States should ensure that adequate and effective legal or other appropriate remedies are available to any persons claiming that his/her right of protection against forced evictions has been violated or is under threat of violation.

12. States should ensure that eviction impact assessments are carried out prior to the initiation of any project which could result in development-based displacement, with a view to fully securing the human rights of all potentially affected persons, groups and communities.

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The Obligation to Prevent Homelessness 13. States should ensure that no persons, groups or communities are rendered homeless or are exposed to the violation of any other human rights as a consequence of a forced eviction.

The Obligation to Adopt Appropriate Measures of Law and Policy 14. States should carry out comprehensive reviews of relevant national legislation with a view to ensuring the compatibility of such legislation with the norms contained in the present Guidelines and other relevant international human rights provisions. In this regard, special measures shall be taken to ensure that no forms of discrimination, statutory or otherwise, are applied in relation to property rights, housing rights and access to resources.

15. States should adopt appropriate legislation and policies to ensure the protection of individuals, groups and communities from forced eviction, having due regard to their best interests. States are encouraged to adopt constitutional provisions in this regard.

The Obligation to Explore All Possible Alternatives 16. States should fully explore all possible alternatives to any act involving forced eviction. In this regard, all affected persons, including women, children and indigenous peoples shall have the right to all relevant information and the right to full participation and consultation throughout the entire process and to propose any alternatives. In the event that agreement cannot be reached on the proposed alternative by the affected persons, groups and communities and the entity proposing the forced eviction in question, an independent body, such as a court of law, tribunal, or ombudsman may be called upon.

The Obligation to Expropriate Only as a Last Resort 17. States should refrain, to the maximum possible extent, from compulsorily acquiring housing or land, unless such acts are legitimate and necessary and designed to facilitate the enjoyment of human rights through, for instance, measures of land reform or redistribution. If, as a last resort, States consider themselves compelled to undertake proceedings of expropriation or compulsory acquisition, such action shall be: (a) determined and envisaged by law and norms regarding forced eviction, in so far as these are consistent internationally recognized human rights; (b) solely for the purpose of protecting the general welfare in a democratic society; (c) reasonable and proportional and (d) in accordance with the present Guidelines.

IV. THE RIGHTS OF ALL PERSONS Integrity of the Home 18. All persons have the right to adequate housing which includes, inter alia, the integrity of the home and access to and protection of common property resources. The home and its occupants shall be protected against any acts of violence, threats of violence or other forms of harassment, in particular as they relate to women and children. The home and its occupants shall further be protected against any arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy or respect of the home.

Assurances of Security of Tenure 19. All persons have a right to security of tenure which provides sufficient legal protection from forced eviction from one’s home or land.

20. The present Guidelines shall apply to all persons, groups and communities irrespective of their tenure status.

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V. LEGAL REMEDIES 21. All persons threatened with forced eviction, notwithstanding the rationale or legal basis thereof, have the right to: (a) a fair hearing before a competent, impartial and independent court or tribunal (b) legal counsel, and where necessary, sufficient legal aid (c) effective remedies 22. States should adopt legislative measures prohibiting any forced evictions without a court order. The court shall consider all relevant circumstances of affected persons, groups and communities and any decision be in full accordance with principles of equality and justice and internationally recognized human rights.

23. All persons have a right to appeal any judicial or other decisions affecting their rights as established pursuant to the present Guidelines, to the highest national judicial authority.

Compensation 24. All persons subjected to any forced eviction not in full accordance with the present Guidelines, should have a right to compensation for any losses of land, personal, real or other property or goods, including rights or interests in property not recognized in national legislation, incurred in connection with a forced eviction. Compensation should include land and access to common property resources and should not be restricted to cash payments.

Restitution and Return 25. All persons, groups and communities subjected to forced evictions have the right to, but shall not be forced to return to their homes, lands or places of origin.

Resettlements 26. In full cognizance of the contents of the present Guidelines there may be instances in which, in the public interest, or where the safety, health or enjoyment of human rights so demands, particular persons, groups and communities may be subject to resettlement. Such resettlement must occur in a just and equitable manner and in full accordance with law of general application.

27. All persons, groups and communities have the right to suitable resettlement which includes the right to alternative land or housing, which is safe, secure, accessible, affordable and habitable.

28. In determining the compatibility of resettlement with the present Guidelines, States should ensure that in the context of any case of resettlement the following criteria are adhered to: (a) No resettlement shall take place until such a time that a full resettlement policy consistent with the present Guidelines and internationally recognized human rights is in place. (b) Resettlement must ensure equal rights to women, children and indigenous populations and other vulnerable groups including the right to property ownership and access to resources. Resettlement policies should include programmes designed for women with respect to education, health, family welfare and employment opportunities.

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(c) The actor proposing and/or carrying out the resettlement shall be required by law to pay for any costs associated therewith, including all resettlement costs. (d) No affected persons, groups or communities, shall suffer detriment as far as their human rights are concerned nor shall their right to the continuous improvement of living conditions be subject to infringement. This applies equally to host communities at resettlement sites, and affected persons, groups and communities subjected to forced eviction. (e) That affected persons, groups and communities provide their full and informed consent as regards the relocation site. The State shall provide all necessary amenities and services and economic opportunities. (f) Sufficient information shall be provided to affected persons, groups and communities concerning all State projects as well as to the planning and implementation processes relating to the resettlement concerned, including information concerning the purpose to which the eviction dwelling or site is to be put and the persons, groups or communities who will benefit from the evicted site. Particular attention must be given to ensure that indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, the landless, women and children are represented and included in this process. (g) The entire resettlement process should be carried out in full consultation and participation with the affected persons, groups and communities. States should take into account in particular all alternate plans proposed by the affected persons, groups and communities. (h) If after a full and fair public hearing, it is found that thee is a need to proceed with the resettlement, then the affected persons, groups and communities shall be given at least ninety (90) days notice prior to the date of the resettlement; and (I) Local government officials and neutral observers, properly identified, shall be present during the resettlement so as to ensure that no force, violence or intimidation is involved.

VI. MONITORING 29. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other United Nations human rights institutions should seek by all possible means to secure full compliance with the present Guidelines.

VII. SAVINGS CLAUSE 30. The provisions contained within the present Guidelines are without prejudice to the provisions of any other international instrument or national law which ensures the enjoyment of all human rights as they relate to the practice of forced evictions.

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Publications available from COHRE

COHRE’s Sources Series COHRE, Sources #6: International Events and Forced Evictions, (June 1999) COHRE, Sources #5: Women and Housing Rights, (March 1999) COHRE, Sources #4: Legal Provisions on Housing Rights: International and National Approaches, (2nd ed., January 1999) COHRE, Sources #3: Forced Evictions and Human Rights: A Manual for Action, (2nd ed., November 1998) COHRE, Sources #2: Selected Bibliography on Housing Rights and Evictions (March 1993) COHRE, Sources # 1: Legal Sources of the Right to Housing in International Human Rights Law (February 1992)(out of print)

Global Survey’s on Forced Evictions COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 7 (September 1998) COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 6 (August 1994) COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 5 (June 1993) COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 4 (August 1992) COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 3 (February 1992) COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 2 (August 1991) COHRE, Forced Evictions: Violations of Human Rights No. 1 (August 1990)

Books Scott Leckie, When Push Comes to Shove: Forced Evictions and Human Rights (1995), 139p.

Scott Leckie, Destruction by Design: Housing Rights Violations in Tibet (1994), 199p.

Country Reports COHRE, The Solomon Islands and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (March 1999)

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COHRE, The Dominican Republic and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Vital Victories Adrift in a Sea of Failures (February 1999) COHRE, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (November 1997) COHRE & YUVA, Planned Segregation: Riots, Evictions and Dispossession in Jogeshwari East Mumbai/Bombay (June 1996) Still Waiting: Housing Rights Violations in a Land of Plenty, The Kobe Earthquake and Beyond (February 1996), HIC (mission organized by COHRE) COHRE, Prima Facie Violations of Article 11(1) of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the Government of the Philippines (November 1993)

Additional COHRE Publications and Documents COHRE, Training Programme on International Law and Housing Rights (October 1998), used in COHRE’s housing rights training activities COHRE, Violence Against Women and Social and Economic Rights (June 1998), presented to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women COHRE, A Failure in the Making: A Critique of the Draft Habitat Agenda and Plan of Action (January 1996), presented the UN Centre on Human Settlements COHRE, Guidelines for Eviction Documentation (1993)

Organizational Publications Progress Report of COHRE Activities (January 1996 - May 1998) Progress Report on the First Four years of COHRE (1992-1995) NGO Profile on COHRE in Environment and Urbanisation, vol. 6, no. 1 (April 1994) Pamphlet on the work of COHRE

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