High-resolution
satellite images captured under a pioneering program of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) provide powerful
evidence that the government of Zimbabwe has destroyed an entire
settlement and relocated thousands of residents as part of a campaign
against political opponents.
The images, collected by DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird satellite, show two
views of the settlement of Porta Farm, located just west of Harare,
Zimbabwe’s capital. The first, an archived image from June 2002 (left),
shows an intact settlement with more than 850 homes and other buildings;
an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people lived in Porta Farm at the time. The
second photo (right), acquired on April 6, 2006, shows that the
settlement has been leveled.
The images were released May 31, 2006, as central evidence in a report
compiled by the international secretariat of Amnesty International in
London and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), based in Harare.
The report, “Shattered Lives: The Case of Porta Farm,” views the
destruction of the settlement and the forced relocation of its residents
as emblematic of a broad campaign by the government of President Robert
Mugabe to repress political opposition.
The photos of Porta Farm were collected under a new AAAS program that is
exploring how satellite imagery and other cutting-edge geospatial
technologies can be used to assess potential human rights violations and
prevent new ones before they develop. Currently, imaging satellites and
other geospatial technology are “vastly underutilized” by the human
rights community, says Lars Bromley, senior program associate in the
AAAS Office of International Initiatives. “By handling all the technical
and analytical aspects, AAAS allows groups like Amnesty and the lawyers
to match their issue expertise with the power of the imagery.”
