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."
Is there any evidence of an outcry in Britain for this ?
I wish it were so.
Zimbabwe was not a country asking for free food or water or...
It was the breadbasket of Southern Africa, exporting food to surrounding countries.
Please avail yourself of the opportunity to be educated on FR links, and take your knee-jerk responses somewhere else.
If this article is correct, I doubt your country will be allowed to send food aid to Rhodesia. And it's quite right that the Zimbabweans did try to toss Mugabe out of office in the most recent election; whether there was fraud or not in 1980 is beside the point - representative government only can be said to be truly representative if it allows people to change their minds about who leads them.
Love, Ivan
My point earlier was that during the FIRST election, there was the usual amount of fraud for AFRICA. A lot more than we are used to, but not for them. The people elcted this monster out of racial hatred for the white man. HE was going to get back at whitey. Now he has taken over and his hate knows no bounds. I guess thats what you get when you elect a hate-monger.
Stating that your friend was a RUETERS reporter only hurts your credibility among thinking folks, just so you know.
Such a sheltered life she leads...sees blacks only in the pages of National Geographic, if she even reads that.
Do you even read your posts before you hit the button? That's about the most pathetic thing I've ever seen posted on FR.
Such a sheltered life she leads...sees blacks only in the pages of National Geographic, if she even reads that.
I've travelled extensively throughout Europe, the US and Canada, and parts of North Africa. So your point is?
And on realising Mugabwe's capabilities those same people attempted to democratically remove him, but were denied that basic right. So we are to condemn them forever, even after seeing the error of their ways?
Stating that your friend was a RUETERS reporter only hurts your credibility among thinking folks, just so you know.
I stated my colleague was a Reuteurs journo because that simply was the case, and as a result of working for that company had a number of postings in Africa. His father, until his death last year, also lived for 20 years in Zimbabwe.
I expect that in my lifetime, we in the US will need to overthrow our socialist government. Hopefully, when that time comes, we'll do it, and not whine for everyone to support us because we screwed up.
Africa had their chance with our help. It was called Somalia. They want us to support their stupid choices, then they kill the very people sent to help. They want self rule? Fine, have it. They'll find it's not as easy as complaining.
As far as I recall the US and the Allied Forces went in assist in the removal of a despot from Germany!
There's my evidence that you're nothing but a racist.
And you're illiterate to boot. The term is "genes" not jeans, although in your case it seems that that is the area of the anatomy with which you reason.
At the time our European forbears were still practicing human sacrifice in the British Isles and Northern Europe, the Ethiopians were Christianized by Phillip.
Someday when the west has had its day in the sun, there will be outposts of civilization, based on Christianity, in Asia and Africa.
I, too, am dismayed at the dialogue. It is out and out racist in some of the posts.
If there is a western country that has some interest in intervening militarily, it is the UK. The U.S. should not be involved in that way.
However, the best answer is to support and arm the anti-Mugabe Zimbaweans living in South Africa, to enable them to restore democracy in Zimbabwe.
As for food aid, charities should begin now to establish refugee camps in South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana to feed the thousands who will shortly begin walking there.
Again, your analysis is right on spot !
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