Posted on 09/07/2002 1:59:49 PM PDT by MadIvan
United Nations World Food Programme director James Morris appealed on Friday for more food aid for millions of hungry Zimbabweans, whose plight has been worsened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Morris spoke after visiting the main government hospital in the town of Bindura, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of the capital Harare, where scores of malnourished children are receiving treatment.
Millions of children
"If the work that the government and the work that we are going to do is not successful, they'll simply be back there for the same kind of experience in another few days, and we're talking of millions of children across the country," he said.
Morris is UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for the humanitarian crisis in southern Africa, where aid workers say up to 13 million people face famine in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho.
"In my judgment, if you set aside the worldwide AIDS/HIV phenomenon... what's happening in these six countries is the most serious humanitarian disaster crisis in the world today," he said.
Dramatic maize shortage
Once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe now needs food aid because of a dramatic maize shortage, which aid agencies partly blame on President Robert Mugabe's seizure of land from minority white farmers for redistribution to landless blacks.
The government says the shortage is due solely to a drought that has hit small-scale black farmers who account for 70% of Zimbabwe's annual maize output.
What part of "go to hell" does the UN not understand? These countries chose to be independent, they chose to run themselves into the ground - it's about time they understood the pain of being socialist and stupid.
Regards, Ivan
Partly blame? PARTLY blame? What sort of ridiculous statement it that?
...now Ivan, be a good chappie and turn down the volume of colour on that union jack. Have pity on my delicate state ;-)
Ah, but what incentives are you offering? ;)
Regards, Ivan
Now don't say I don't know how to be chivalrous to you Irish colleens. ;)
Best Regards, Ivan
Why not move it to Salisbury (Harare). The Rhodesians built some very nice buildings there, which are probably no longer of much use, given the demographic changes. Then the UN could operate in a Nation that shares its fundamental outlook.
I apologize to any Rhodesian friends who are still trying to hang on in their country, for this suggestion. And I understand the legend about drinking from the water of the Zambezi. But just think of the advantage, if the good folks do return. They will have so many of those who need to be paid back, all together in one place!
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
It's RACIST, I TELL YA! This corn grew for whitey but it won't grow for me. Must be part of the world-wide white supremecist conspiracy.
If I didn't know better, I'd think you were making an attempt at sarcasm.
This is the best idea concerning the UN I've ever heard. How can we help move the UN to Hirare.
I was surprised that the UN hasn't found some way to blame the US for starvation in Africa...yet.
If that number of people, are not willing or capable of taking up sticks, stones and knives -- to kill the bastards running their country, that want them to die - then perhaps they will die.
How long should the world continue to feed the subjects of political systems that bring these disasters upon themselves - and look at us in the West as the enemy, until they need a handout or a free meal... Tough..
Semper Fi
Are you sure that they haven't? I don't usually bother to read items that have a UN source--there is enough aggravation to be had from our local misfits and Quislings. But my impression is that they are very unhappy with all of the First World Nations, because we do not understand that we have a duty to support the rest of the planet. I am sure that if you asked Kofi, he would tell you not to have that second helping at dinner, but to feed someone in one of Africa's Marxist experiments.
On the other hand, we may be more to blame than you realize. It was the Dean Rusk foreign policy (1961-1969), which really got the ball rolling to hand much of Africa to its present leadership. We think that the Kennedy/Johnson Administration just messed up America; but it was a world-wide disease. (See An American Foreign Policy.)
While Rhodesia held out until 1980, its neighbors to the North fell in that period, while the Marxist movements all around it gained encouragement. Rusk claimed to be promoting an American Revolution, in competition to what the Russians and Chinese were promoting. But the funny thing was that his idea of an American Revolution bore far closer relationships to what they were doing in Russia and China, than to anything that any of the Founding Fathers would have recognized as "American."
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
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