Posted on 06/12/2002 6:39:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
ROME - The United States said Tuesday it would provide a third of the 1.2 million tons of food aid needed to stave off famine in southern Africa, a crisis it said was being exacerbated by Zimbabwe's policies.
Andrew Natsios, the head of USAID, the U.S. foreign aid agency, said the United States was contributing an extra 275,000 tons of wheat to the U.N. emergency relief effort for six African countries, bringing its total to 400,000 tons.
However, he told a press conference on the sidelines of the U.N. World Food Summit that the problem in Zimbabwe, one of the six affected countries, wasn't so much about food as it was food distribution.
Natsios said he was concerned by reports that President Robert Mugabe's government was preventing food aid from getting to opposition strongholds.
"We've even heard of children whose parents are suspected of supporting the opposition being turned away from feeding lines at schools," he said.
Zimbabwe's opposition has accused the government of withholding food aid from its supporters even as the country is experiencing a major food crisis.
The World Food Program says half of the estimated 12.8 million people at risk of starvation in southern Africa are in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's government has denied the opposition's allegations, but independent aid workers and human rights groups have raised concern over unfair distribution and interference in relief programs by local state officials and ruling party militants.
The head of the World Food Program, James Morris, said Tuesday he had raised the issue with Mugabe in a meeting Monday, and had received assurances that aid would get through.
"He assured me he would tell the world that there would be no political favoritism or disincentives for allowing us to do our work," Morris told a press conference.
He said, however, that Zimbabwe's land grab program had complicated relief efforts and contributed to the hunger problem. He cited a 55-60 percent decrease in commercial agricultural productivity this year over previous ones.
"So it's a major factor," Morris said.
Mugabe's government has embarked on a campaign to confiscate 95 percent of land owned by the nation's 4,000 white farmers and redistribute it to landless blacks.
But since it began in 2000, the program has helped drive hundreds of white farmers and tens of thousands of their black workers off the land.
Natsios dismissed Mugabe's defense of the program in his speech to the food summit Monday. In his comments, Mugabe said the program had created a "firm launching pad" for fighting poverty and hunger.
"The economic polices that he (Mugabe) is pursuing are collapsing agriculture production in areas where there was rainfall," Natsios said.
Natsios said he didn't oppose the principle of land redistribution in Zimbabwe - where some 4,000 white farmers own a third of the nation's land - just the way it was being carried out.
"Mugabe's not even giving the land to the poor but to his cronies," Natsios said.
(pwm/nvw)
PAPHOS, Cyprus - Britain should play a far greater role in resolving Zimbabwe's crisis, former South African President F.W. de Klerk said Tuesday.
"I think once again the world has been a bit unfair to expect us to be the ones who resolve the problems of Zimbabwe," de Klerk told reporters during a visit to Cyprus at the invitation of Greek Cypriot tycoon Michalis Leptos.
De Klerk, South Africa's last president under apartheid who handed over power to Nelson Mandela after all-race elections in 1994, pointed the finger at Britain, suggesting it should do more as the former colonial power in Zimbabwe.
"To my mind, Great Britain ... with many, many of their citizens having their lives threatened and properties taken away should join hands with South Africa and other countries in southern Africa to address the problem," the 1993 Nobel peace prize winner said.
Zimbabwe has been suffering its worst political and economic crisis since gaining independence from Britain in 1980. President Robert Mugabe's government has been confiscating white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks, while local and international human rights organizations have criticized government efforts to suppress dissent.
De Klerk, traveling with his Greek wife Ilita, was scheduled to speak at a private dinner on Thursday about renowned South African heart surgeon Christiaan Neethling Barnard, who died while on holiday in Paphos in Sept. 2001.
The globe-trotting politician was also caught up by World Cup fever and paid tribute to the performance of the South African team, who play Spain in a Group B decider on Wednesday.
"There is an underlying goodwill between the various peoples of our country irrespective of race and ethnicity, if we can get through to the second round of the World Cup that will be strengthened even more," said de Klerk.
He was expected in Athens on Friday for talks with Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis and Mandela, with whom he shared the Nobel prize.
(str-hhr) [End]
Ignorance Making You Ill? Cure It!
for links, tools, & instructions about how to contact a pile of different people, and how to send a link to this story right here ( or anywhere else ) to a "mass email" using Outlook Express.
Do be advised that since I increased my volume of mass emails to letters to editors I have gotten return volleys of virus attacks- my ISP filters them out before the get to my PC, but if yours does not, take appropriate precautions to guard your PC.
I take this as a positive- my emails are simply links with no editorial content; so the other side must fear & loath the information even reaching the public.
Tell your wife I hope she will have that tooth looked at and end her suffering.
The article is the same as my earlier post, but the deKlerk article in your reply 1 is not in my article, so whether or not anyone wants to reply to my earlier post, I would invite comments on the deKlerk item in this thread.
That is that if you are white and have your home in Zimbabwe, then you are a British national.
In times past, and even, to a much lesser extent, now, many in the US had the same view of Canadians.
If you were a Canadian you were necessarily a British national.
Most of the 4500 or so commercial farm families operating the 6000 or so commercial farms in Zimbabwe are white Zimbabwean nationals. About 15 percent of them are black Zimbabwean nationals.
The total opulation of Zimbabwe is variously reported as between 11.5 million and 13 million. I tend to use the lower figure.
The total white population of Zimbabwe is about 70,000 and declining as many of the younger ones emigrate.
As to Britain having any duties in respect of Zimbabwe. its obligations are moral and lie in its membership in the Commonwealth.
It has the same duty toward those of its nationals who reside in Zimbabwe as any home country has toward its nationals who take up permanent residence in a country and law and order then breaks down in that country.
That really comes down to the duty to evacuate them, if they want to go and are unable to leave on their own ticket.
Of course, Britain would have a moral obligation to respond if invited to do so by South Africa and/or Mozambique and those countries were willing to provide their share of the military force needed.
Britain did intervene in the Falklands, but in that case the residents were still British subjects with UK nationality.
Britain also intervened in Sierra Leone and its intervention brought an insurrection to a sudden halt.
But in both cases, Britain was able to bring sea and air power directly to bear without having to seek the use of any third party's territory or airspace.
The nearest seacoast to Zimbabwe is the mozambique Channel, 250 km from Zim's eastern border across Mozambique.
Without the co-operation of Mozambique or South Africa, the logistics prevent the kind of operation expedition that was sent to Sierra Leone.
Remember that when Britain intervened in Sierra Leone, it did so with the consent of Sierra Leone and for the ostensible purpose of extracting British and Commonwealth nationals.
Remember also that if Britain acts unilaterally, or even with the grudging acquescience of Mozambique or South Africa, it will be opposed by the whole of Africa.
The only way that there will be armed intervention in Zimbabwe is if South Africa or Mozambique take the initiative and ask for Brit assistance.
That is simply not going to happen as South Africa considers Mugabe as conforming to "African standards" and had characterized the problem as one of a disputed election, not massive thuggery.
I confess that my first instinct was to suggest that the farmers hire mercs and beat up on mugabe, but reality intervened.
There are limits to what can be done militarily as well as politically.
There are dentists that will put you to sleep. I hope she will do it. All this pain and worry (for both of you) is worse than getting it fixed. Good luck!
"Fun at the Emergency Clinic,"
"Why do pharmacies take an hour to fill two scrips?"
"My Mom needed matches so she can smoke in the Old Folks House of Bondage,"
and the assorted adventures associated with these & other things.
Em did finally decide to get help, so we went to the local clinic- and while everything took too long, a nice Doc who is the son of her former guitar/singing partner at the Temple drained the bloody thing, loaded her up with penicillin & codeine, and got her an appointment with a Dentist who "caters to cowards." We'll see him in the morning, and she is feeling better.
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