Zimbabwe -- Food donors threaten pull-out

Zimbabwe Independent ^ | June 21, 2002 | Augustine Mukaro

[Clive]

MAJOR food donors have threatened to suspend aid to Zimbabwe unless government removes constraints preventing the private sector from importing grain to feed over six million Zimbabweans facing starvation, it emerged this week.

Diplomats said donors have started to question government's commitment to stave off hunger when it was deliberately stifling private-sector participation in food imports. They said suspension of supplies was now a real possibility.

Government last year gave the Grain Marketing Board a monopoly to import grain.

The country is on the brink of starvation as government has failed to import adequate stocks of food while relief agencies which have moved in to assist have not been allowed unfettered access to targeted population groups.

World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson Makena Walker this week said the United Nations body had so far brought 57,000 tonnes of food into the country but had only managed to distribute 13,000 tonnes.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the major player in aid co-ordination in the country, said faced with outstanding import requirements of 1.5 million tonnes of maize and limited foreign currency to finance government-led commercial food imports, Zimbabwe needed to engage private-sector participation in grain importation and to maximise erratic food-aid supplies from donors.

UNDP country representative Victor Angelo said all means to address the food crisis should be pursued and the private sector should not be left out.

"We have called for meetings with senior government officials next week seeking the engagement of private-sector participation in food importation," Angelo said.

European Union (EU) Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Poul Neilson, said government must remove constrains which bar the private sector from trading in grain products to facilitate the importation of food.

"Humanitarian food-aid achievements have limits," Nielson said.

"But the private sector should be given a leading role to play in bringing food onto the market. The government must remove the constraints which are preventing this from happening."

Nielson said the EU was "gravely concerned" over the magnitude of the food crisis facing Zimbabwe.

United States embassy spokesperson in Harare Bruce Wharton said government should seriously consider the role of the private sector to alleviate the food crisis.

"Involvement of private traders will certainly improve food availablity because the tremendous difference between the parallel market and the official rate is increasing, making it difficult for government to import food," Wharton said.

Current government policies pose formidable constraints on both counts.

Government, through the GMB, has as of June 2 imported a paltry 213,000 tonnes. The consignment included Brazilian and Chinese yellow maize and Kenyan white maize, all of which have already been distributed through GMB depots countrywide.

[Clive]

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[backhoe]

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"Pity about Africa..."

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[tonycavanagh]

I wonder if it is ever right to commit one evil to get rid of another.

If we stop all food aid, will it resault in the over throw of Mugabe.

It will resault in deaths of many, but the current regieme is already the cause of many deaths.

No matter how you play it when you deal with evil you do become tainted by it.

As they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Tony

[jimtorr]

World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson Makena Walker this week said the United Nations body had so far brought 57,000 tonnes of food into the country but had only managed to distribute 13,000 tonnes.

This train wreck is occuring despite food importation. Mugabe's thugacracy simply will not allow the wrong people to obtain food.

In my opinion, he will attempt to get rid of political opposition through starvation, as Stalin did in The Ukraine and as Mao did throughout China.

[Clive]

We are in a Hobson's Choice, Tony.

Mugabe is holding back food supplies to families and villages suspected of supporting the opposition.

Even relief supplies are being misdirected by the government providing fraudulent lists, shipments being confiscated and maize meal being stolen from relief recipients as they return home with them.

In addition, Zimbabwe has recently rejected maize offered by the US as relief supplies on the grounds that the US could not certify that the maize was not genetically engineered.

To add the cherry on the whipped cream, traffic through the Port of Biera in Mozambique is clogged up so that maize shipments are being held up.

Reluctantly, I ca see no option to implementing a policy of "everyone gets relief meal or no one gets it".

Otherwise, we find ourselves participating in a scheme to use famine relief as a political weapon.

[hchutch]

Mugabe is exhibit A for allowing the CIA to do a 187 on certain foreign leaders.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It still amazes me that this can happen in the world. When will we be rid of mad men and dictators?

[happygrl]

You are right. We will be a party to this grotesque nightmare if we allow ZANU-PF to distribute food. It's best if all suffer equally; more likely for some fed up party members to see the light and do what needs to be done.

[Publius6961]

Why a loser country is ever allowed to impose conditions over distribution of food being given to feed the citizens it has neglected is beyond me.

Gonna get in the way?
See ya!

[Travis McGee]

In the 1980s Mugabe used the communist North Korean trained 3rd Brigade to massacre and slaughter his Matabele tribe opposition.

In 2003, Mugabe is using the tried and tested communist tactic of withholding food to slaughter his political opposition.

This should not be surprising, Mugabe is an old hand at mass slaughter. I just can't believe that ANY whites stayed past the 1980s when Mugabe showed his true colors with his slaughter of the Matabele. They must have known that it would only be a matter of time until it was their turn.

[Clive]

People seem to have a capacity for misleading and misguiding themselves.

After the Second Chimurenga which installed Mugabe into power in 1980, the whites had their bags packed and were prepared to go into exile.

Mugabe made a speach in which he asked the whites to remain and help him to build a new Zimbabwe.

Some of the whites believed him and unpacked their bags, perhaps out of wishful thinking. After all, it is a wrenching, traumatic experience to have to go into exile.

They ought to have had cause to take a second look at Mugabe's good faith upon which they were relying after the Gukurahundi in which Mugabe's North Korean trained 5th Brigade massacred 10,000 Ndebele and maimed a like number.

Mugabe is Shona. His party is Shona based. He chose a Shona name for the former Rhodesia. His Shona majority Zanu party had entered into a "government of national unity" with the Ndebele based Zapu party. Then he instituted the Gukurahundi. He then set loose a massacre on the Ndebele.

The lesson was there. Mugabe is a racist, an opportunist and a mass murderer. His word has always been worthless. Yet Mugabe was respected in liberal circles throughout the world.

Now comes the so-called Third Chimurenga.

This is nothing less than a violent establishment of a Marxist, totalitarion, single-party state with a president who will only be removed on his death.

Whites make a handy scapegoat. After them will come the Indians and after them it will be time to complete the unfinished business in Matabeleland.

[Travis McGee]

Unless he is stopped.

A $US100,000 donation could purchase 1,000 surplus Enfield rifles and 100,000 rounds of .303. These rifles could be brought in by light plane in ten loads of 100 rifles each.

If only 100 of those rifles made it to the right hands, it would not be possible for Mugabe to terrorize his nation with rapid roadblocks and sweeps.

Just a thought. It seems to me to be a cheap price, one even affordable for certain civilians now in the RSA, NZ, or Oz. Ten men, a yacht, and a light plane could do the entire operation rather easily.