Posted on 05/01/2002 4:28:19 AM PDT by Mom_Grandmother
WORLD NEWS
WEDNESDAY, 01 MAY 2002
W O R L D N E W S S T O R Y
Zimbabwe declares food disaster, newsmen arrested
01 May 2002
HARARE: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe declared a nationwide "state of disaster" yesterday as a food crisis blamed on drought and the government's seizure of white-owned farms threatened thousands with starvation.
It is the Mugabe government's strongest admission to date of the gravity of the crisis after months of warnings from local and foreign aid agencies.
"As a result of the prevalent drought, a state of disaster exists in all communal lands and resettlement and urban areas in Zimbabwe with effect from April 3, 2002," Mugabe said in a proclamation published in the state-owned Herald newspaper.
The Herald said the move will enable donors and international relief agencies to step up emergency aid to about 7.8 million people who need food assistance in a country once known as the bread basket of southern Africa.
The global response to aid appeals has been slow due to Zimbabwe's international isolation over its human rights record, the farm seizures and Mugabe's disputed victory in March presidential elections.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has called Mugabe's victory "daylight robbery" and demanded fresh elections. Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF has refused a poll re-run, saying the March 9-11 vote was free and fair.
Tsvangirai said on Tuesday he would ask the courts to drop a treason case against him and two other MDC officials if a trial date was not set soon.
The three men have denied charges of plotting to kill Mugabe just weeks before the election, calling the allegations "gross political harassment".
The government has also used a tough new media law to crack down on the press since March. In the latest incident, two reporters from an independent newspaper were arrested on Tuesday over a story alleging that pro-government militants had killed an opposition supporter.
Rights groups say worsening political violence since the election has compounded the plight of people grappling with a food crisis blamed on drought and the government's seizure of white-owned farms for landless blacks, which has disrupted agriculture.
Analysts say agricultural production in the crop season ending this month has fallen by 50 percent. Maize rationing has been instituted in communal areas, with some households being limited to sharing a 50kg bag of maize meal each month.
State media reported last week that Zimbabwe had imported 28,000 tonnes of yellow maize, a grain used for both human and animal consumption, as part of a state programme to import 200,000 tonnes to cover the food deficit.
Last week the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said it had received just over a third of the 117,000 tonnes of food it needed to feed hungry Zimbabweans.
The United States, Britain, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and South Africa are the only countries to respond to the WFP's food appeal launched last year.
Some aid agencies say thousands of opposition supporters are being denied access to maize at state depots in the wake of the disputed election.
On Tuesday, independent Daily News deputy editor Davison Maruziva said police arrested reporters Lloyd Mudiwa and Collin Chiwanza over an April 23 story on the alleged beheading of an opposition supporter.
Their lawyer Lawrence Chibwe said he expected the two men to be charged under new legislation which imposes tight controls on the media. The controversial media law came into force just days after Mugabe won re-election.
On Saturday the Daily News said it had doubts about the alleged murder after failing to locate the woman's grave. It quoted editor-in-chief Geoff Nyarota as saying it appeared the newspaper had been misled by the husband.
You mean as in Atlas Shrugged? This is more like what Stalin did to the Kulaks. Famine can be positively useful to a dictator. The white farmers were already paying high taxes, yet no producers' strike a la Rand.
I think Mugabe wants famine. This is not an unintended consequence. This is not the Democratic Party running amok and screwing up the enomomy. Think Ukraine in the 1920s. Famine is a means of controlling people.
The poor were already on the land as employees of the white farmers. They are being chased away. This famine is not caused by stupidity about how things are produced.
-Eric
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As you may know, I'm an old Cold Warrior who tried to prevent this, long ago.
"Pity about Africa...."
"Pray for... Rhodesia-"
Are they going to boil them or fry them?
That seems about his speed. I hope he can handle his new career better than he did the old one.
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