US envoy denounces world leaders who deny people food

Wall Street Journal via ZWNews ^

[Clive]

Rome (AP)- World leaders who deny their people food should stand trial, the U.S. envoy to U.N. food agencies said Monday, in a briefing on looming famines in Africa. Ambassador Tony Hall, speaking after a trip to southern Africa, didn't identify any government allegedly denying its people food. He is the U.S. envoy to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. He said two countries - Zimbabwe and Zambia - were the "main problem" facing U.N. food relief efforts in southern Africa, where millions could face famine. In Zimbabwe, aid agencies have partly blamed a hunger crisis on the government's program to seize thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to black settlers. The country's opposition has accused President Robert Mugabe of denying food to regions opposed to his government. Zambia controversially rejected U.S. food donations because they may have been genetically modified.

"Anybody who uses food as a weapon or denies food to people who then die of hunger should be tried," Hall said. Asked if he was referring to Zimbabwe or Zambia, he said the remark was only a "general principle." Hall also said the European Union - which has banned genetically modified crops for its member nations, but has urged southern African states to accept them as aid - should do more, given the gravity of the crisis. "It's now a moral problem not an intellectual debate" about genetically modified food, Hall said. "If Europe still has some doubts on genetically modified foods, then they shouldn't talk about it but get their own food and money down there," he said. Hall, a former Ohio congressman, traveled in October to southern Africa where droughts and floods have left millions of people facing starvation.

In Zambia, an estimated 2.9 million people - nearly 30% of the population - are in danger of starvation. In October, the government rejected a large U.S. corn donation. The World Food Program is in the process of replacing it with corn that hasn't been genetically modified. The replacement could arrive too late, Hall said. In Zimbabwe, tens of thousands of U.S. crop donations sit undistributed in depots or have not been allowed into the country because of government red tape, Hall said. Also Monday, the World Food Program officially launched a previously announced aid campaign against famines in Africa, saying 38 million people are endangered there. The agency, which has relied mainly on government donations, was appealing for the first time to non-government groups.

[Clive]

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[xm177e2]

This is an important issue, one of the most important moral issues of our time. It's good to see Bush take a stand on it. Too many European leaders have been silent.

[Travis McGee]

What cowards we are, unable to even name Mugabe, who wants to reduce his population by starvation from 12 to only 6 million "loyal" subjects.