Critics charge that food supplies are being funneled mostly to buy support and pay off cronies as authoritarian President Robert Mugabe fights against a strengthening opposition threatening his decades-long hold on power. Zimbabwe was once known as the bread basket of southern Africa, but food production has been wrecked by erratic rains and the state's often violent seizure of most white-owned commercial farms. Vast tracts of farmland either lie fallow or have been carved into subsistence plots.
Cornmeal, the staple food, is often distributed only to those with membership cards in the ruling Zanu-PF party. Grain is milled almost exclusively by ruling party members and shipped to stores whose owners are known Mugabe faithful. "There is an assumption that most governments want to feed their people, (but Mugabe) realized that food is a very effective political weapon," said David Coltart, an opposition lawmaker and a top human rights lawyer. Government officials dispute the accusation, putting the blame for the food crisis on bad weather. ***
A further 250 people have been taken to hospital and scores beaten and tortured in police custody, it said. Welshman Ncube, the party's secretary-general, said: "The attempt is to scare and intimidate the MDC leadership. "The government is labouring under the mistaken belief that, because each and every one of us is facing a charge or facing incarceration, the party will retreat from its obligation to organise mass protests against this dictatorship. Zanu-PF has learned nothing though history. They may postpone it, but eventually freedom will come."***