IOM camp, Headlands In the months immediately after the demolitions, IOM did construct a tented camp at Headlands, outside of Harare, and several hundred people were accommodated there. However, a few weeks later, the entire camp was dismantled in the middle of the night by the police, IDPs were forced onto trucks and dumped elsewhere. The official reason, from President Robert Mugabe himself – “We are not tents people”.110 The government accused the international community of trying to create an impression of desperation and of implying that government was not capable of meeting housing needs, by putting people in tents. The authors were informed that within days of this happening, scores of tents that had been flown to Zimbabwe for emergency accommodation by one international donor, were flown out and taken to Pakistan where the government was appealing for aid for earthquake victims. This act expresses clearly the frustration felt by those who would help, and whose help was being refused or slapped back. And those who really paid the price, the IDPs, were left in the rain. Obstruction of access to the displaced The government has routinely refused access to the displaced, particularly in the temporary camp at Hopley Farm near Harare. This issue has been recorded in detail in other reports, but has not been that relevant since January 2006 in the four provinces under focus here.111 This is mainly owing to the fact that the displaced in Bulawayo were forcibly spread around rural areas by police in July last year, since when there has been little official interest in them. The UN model house UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland commented after his visit in December: “The UN could have done more if there were good working conditions….Government should remove bureaucracy. They should let us help their people.”112 Within a fortnight of Egeland’s comment, his concerns were aptly illustrated. A row broke out between the government and the UN over the provision of temporary houses at Hopley Farm by the UN. The Minister of Local Government, Ignatius Chombo, accused the UN of constructing a temporary model that was “substandard and a mockery to Africans”. He said the house was “below human dignity and built by people guided by a this-is-good-enough-for-Africans attitude.”113 The UN Resident Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator, Dr Agostino Zacarias, categorically refuted Chombo’s position, and pointed out that the UN had never undertaken to build permanent housing for the displaced; bearing in mind that the government refused to accept tents, and that the UN had finite resources, this model was a compromise to get people out of the rain as fast as possible. The house design was reached after protracted discussions between the UN and government, and was in fact a model agreed to by both parties, as a response to government’s refusal to allow tents for IDPs. The house was built of bricks and asbestos roofing, and was designed to be a “transitional or temporary home”, which beneficiaries could in due course enlarge into a more permanent dwelling. The mid term 2006 CAP for Zimbabwe indicates the intention of the UN to fundraise to build 23,000 shelters this year. With only 4% built to date, this target will clearly not be reached this 110 Cited in Zimbabwe Independent, 6 January 2006: “UN house-model feud exposes ZANU PF ploy”. See reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and statements by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights during 2006, for more on obstruction of access at Hopley Farm and elsewhere. 112 Zimbabwe Independent, 9 December 2005: “Egeland endorses Tibaijuka report”. 113 Zimbabwe Independent, 23 December 2005: “UN rep slams Chombo over houses”. 111 69