Posted on 01/03/2003 5:25:17 PM PST by MadIvan
Robert Mugabe is refusing to let Zimbabweans import food, a decision which is condemning millions of people to shortages, United Nations officials said yesterday.
More than 5,000 people gathered at Viriri School, Murambinda, 140 miles south of Harare, to collect hand-outs of corn, beans and oil from the World Food Programme.
Patience Mukondomi, 31, was not given any. As a teacher she has a job and therefore does not qualify for aid. "There is nothing in the shops. We have money, but there is no food to buy, please sell us some," she implored officials.
But Luis Clemens, a WFP spokesman, explained that doing so would be against the rules. "We cannot sell food, however much we want to help people," he said.
"We would be able to feed many more people if the government allowed private importation of corn."
The Mugabe regime has awarded a monopoly on trading in grain to a government agency and there are countless verified reports from opposition supporters that they have been denied permission to buy this food.
At the WFP distribution centre another desperate woman, with a baby on her back, said her husband was in the army 40 miles further south and so she too did not qualify for food aid.
"We are starving," she said. "Even if my husband sent money, which he doesn't because I am the second wife, there is no food to buy. My neighbour helps me. Without her we would be dead."
The neighbour is one of three million people receiving food from WFP, half of those on the brink of starvation. Mugabe undertook to feed the rest, but has been unable to find foreign currency to import anything but a trickle of grain from South Africa.
"Private importation of corn would change the situation dramatically," said Mr Clemens. "We have made the offer to facilitate the importation of food, but there is no change in policy."
He said the WFP would need to continue its Zimbabwe operations beyond April, when harvests are due.
Few crops have been planted by the inexperienced farmers who replaced more than 4,000 white commercial farmers evicted in the past three years under the government's land reforms.
Teresa Madamombe, 41 a mother of five, said: "This is the first time in our lives there is no food to buy. In 1983 and in 1992 there was drought, but we could buy food, but not now, and I do not know why."
She said she knew nothing of the destruction of Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture. "We do not get news here. We are far from the commercial farms. Have they all gone?"
A thin young man overheard the conversation, sidled up and whispered: "There is no food because of politics. You must know that. Industries which make food have closed down now that the farmers have gone.
"We can't talk politics because there has been violence here, but we do know why we have no food."
Shouldn't you be preaching this to your own kind?
None of those were, of course, over 40, and none could read and write. None had ever seen a doctor, nurse, or dentist...
Baack to the Fuuuture time.
It was the white commercial farmers who fed the 14. million masses, who must now die off now that their source of food has gone.
I don't care if they are problems or not, their bones will be take much the same length of time to crumble unburied atop the soil of Zim, that once was the beautiful Rhodesia...
One might go over the bone fields and put up a sign by each skeleton, saying "Look, Ma, I'm White NOW!
...or "Please tell me I'm still black"
...actually very few passers-by would be able to tell for absolutely certain...whether they WERE black or white, in life.
Then, 100 yrs hence, a new Cecil Rhodes may be born!
Oh! You mean the starvation that you've ever had to endure? </sarcasm off>
Old American saying.
Reporters suck as boyfriends, but only experience will prove that point to the uninitiated.Have fun while it lasts!
The USA is not a Socialist society.We are a democratic Republic.I know this can be confusing to the "old world" governments, but I offer no apologies to those who refuse to understand our reality.
The USA does not seek additional territory.We would much rather ignore the "rest of the worlds" trivial and rather ignorant and primitive ideas, but we are constantly forced to add to the number of ignorant populations who can kiss our collective asses.
I have two dead greatgrandfathers, and one greatuncle buried somewhere in Europe.
Please forgive my unwillingness to bury my nieces and nephews on your soil to "prove" our collective love for humanity.
On behalf of all my fellow citizens,white, black,red, brown or yellow,KMA!.
It would be prudent if your people did not count on my people to save your asses from self-destruction, but prudence has never been a hallmark of European existance.
Would those be the nations whose forebearers founded the United States of America that you are talking about?
Once those 13.8 million have turned from potential bone meal into ACTUAL bone meal, the other 200,000 potential cannibals can fight over who has any flesh left on them.
Eh...now when you come down off your cloud. I thought we both were talking about Africa here. In case you didn't know Rhodesia/Zimbabwe is in Africa. Imbibing in the native American hooch, toots?
Immigrant suffering!!!
Shall I ask my tribe to say a prayer for you? Few are left,but we still exist.
If my hunger sticks in your throat,should I pray for your forgiveness?
You are not yet "Miss American Pie", and you offend me, grieviously.But I am certain you can self-justify your right to existance on the ancestral land of MY people.
Do get over yourself.Or return to the land of your ancestors.Either way,you have no right to feel superior in any way, to me or mine, in this land of mine.
Old Sioux saying.
Appropo?
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