Posted on 04/29/2005 5:56:41 PM PDT by blam
Zimbabwe famine red alert as harvest fails
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 30/04/2005)
A famine watch group issued a red alert for Zimbabwe yesterday, saying that most people were no longer able to buy enough food.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network said the harvest was "insufficient to satisfy consumption needs" for the next year.
The maize harvest has been the worst in memory
It issued its warning the day after the head of the country's grain marketing board admitted to a state-run newspaper that it was planning to import 1.2 million tons of maize, a staple food which is now mostly available only on the black market.
It is estimated that only a third of the 1.8 million tons consumed annually have been grown this year.
Aid agencies say that about four million people - around a third of the population - will need food aid this year after the dire harvest.
The famine network is a long-established regional food monitor run by the United States Agency for International Development. Its cautiously-worded statement is confirmation of what farmers and Zimbabweans already knew.
The harvest was the worst in memory. Economists say that that was an inevitable consequence of President Robert Mugabe's confiscation of 90 per cent of large, productive white-owned farms over the past five years. His land grab has wrecked the economy.
Mr Mugabe pledged during his successful re-election campaign last month that no one in Zimbabwe, which was once a major food exporter, would starve.
For several months western countries have tried to persuade his government to sign an agreement to allow donors to launch an international appeal.
But Mr Mugabe said that donors should divert funds to other countries, as Zimbabweans would "choke" if any more food aid was delivered.
Renson Gasela, the agriculture secretary for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said this week: "Donors have not been approached; nor has a signal been given that the government would welcome assistance, even without a direct approach.
"We have fuel shortages and no sugar. There is no cooking oil and there is no milk.
"Many people who used to produce their own chickens have found to their horror that there are no day-old chicks or food for them and eggs are short.
"Maize is now treated like a security item that the country must be kept in ignorance about."
The grain marketing board, which is the only grain trader sanctioned by the government, is run by members of the Zimbabwe National Army.
"...Zimbabwe is what we could become if we allow our farmers to go broke..."
That bears repeating.
I'm sorry but I refuse to donate anything to easing their pain. They've got the government they spawned and now they can pay the consequences for it. 100% self inflicted.
Not to mention the UN. It simply MUST be in the mix, somewhere. This is too atrocious for just one government to handle.
Now, ask me if I care.
If the "we" is government then you've got it exactly backwards.
Government intervention is what produces these situations in the first place.
They'd never forgive us for it--especially if things turned out for the better--but what the heck. It would most definitely be the right thing to do.
Now there's a campaign slogan for the ages!
How could the harvest fail? They got rid of all of those awful white farmers and landowners that fed the population for decades. It has to be better now. Doesn't it?
Now that they failed in farming, maybe it's time to try building nuclear power plants, also with no knowledge of how it's done.
BWHAHAHAHA!!!! Who the hell needs a campaign manager when that slogan says it all!
I think their membership numbers will be dropping soon.
10mm.......GREAT POST......!!!!
All snottiness aside, I guess we all know the situation here. It's a real shame Marxists always experiment on Blacks and Latinos. I guess the attitude is: There's so many of them. If it goes wrong...well... break eggs, make omelettes, you know.
Well, that's a case of a problem taking care of itself...
Mr Mugabe pledged during his successful re-election campaign last month that no one in Zimbabwe, which was once a major food exporter, would starve.
Translation;
"No one who is ZANU PF will starve."
"...Zimbabwe, which was once a major food exporter..."
We should announce that henceforth all international food aid must now be provided by Cuba, Vietnam, Myanamar, and the so-called "Peoples' Republic" of China!!!
Let those models of communist development take care of fellow basket-cases like Zimbabwe, and leave all the evil capitalists in the USA to fend for ourselves......
Oh boo hoo! Whatever are we going to do!!
Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!!!
All Zimbabwe will now be celebrating. They have finally achieved what they have been wanting for all these years.
(I sure hope that America is not suckered into sending food to a nation that voted to starve itself)
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