- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government appeared
to have been caught out on Friday over a five-week blockade imposed by
ruling party militias on food aid from a British charity for a famine-stricken
district, hours after United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan
warned the regime of "the politicisation of food distribution".
The latest "humanitarian situation report" issued by the UN Relief
and Recovery Unit said that the Zimbabwean government had announced during
discussions with local UN officials that it had agreed to allow the British
charity, Save the Children Fund (SCF), to resume food deliveries to about
10 000 starving people in the remote northern district of Binga. The charity's
Zimbabwe director Christopher McIvor denied the report. A draft agreement
between the two sides over the handling of food aid had been drawn up after
"lots of discussions" but it had not yet been signed, he said.
"While all the indications are we will hopefully be able to resume
our programme sooner rather than later, until we sign the document we cannot
say that food supplies are resuming," he said.
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- In early October, members of Mugabe's militia, made up
of guerrilla war veterans, ordered the SCF to stop food distribution in
Binga and accused it of favouring members of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) when it handed out food aid. The charity imported
about 300 tons of food from South Africa for the first part of the its
programme to feed 45,000 people in Binga in October, which has been locked
inside the charity's warehouse in the administrative centre of the district.
With famine biting deeper into the severely impoverished area, the SCF
was planning to step up its operation and feed 100,000 people this month,
but that too has been blocked. In a statement in New York on Thursday,
Annan referred to "the continuing reports of politicisation of food
distribution and humanitarian assistance in general" in Zimbabwe.
He said Mugabe's regime had "an obligation to ensure that it (famine
relief) is given to beneficiaries based on their needs and not upon political
affiliation". He warned that members of the UN supported "the
zero tolerance policy on the politicisation of food distribution"
maintained by the World Food Programme, the UN's emergency food relief
arm.
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- Earlier this year, Binga was the first area in the country
to report famine-related deaths when 27 people died in the district hospital.
The closure of the SCF operation is the second time this year that ruling
party militias have blocked food aid in the district, after its people
voted overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change. In May, war veterans for two months closed down a child supplementary
feeding programme run by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace
in Zimbabwe, over allegations that it was "favouring MDC supporters".
Church officials who asked not to be named said that the local Catholic
Church, which ran the programme, and SCF agreed to suspend food deliveries
in the run-up to local government elections in the district in September,
to avoid being accused again by the ruling party of supporting the MDC.
The local leadership of Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party was informed of the
suspension, the church officials said. However, soon after the elections,
in which the MDC won 15 out of 21 wards, ruling party officials accused
both organisations of withdrawing food aid "to put the government
in a bad light so that people would vote for the MDC," the church
officials said. The church was later allowed to resume supplies but SCF
remains closed in the district.
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- This week, Bishop Pius Ncube, the outspoken head of the
Catholic church in the famine-stricken western provinces of Matabeleland,
said 160 people had starved to death in the area because Mugabe's administration
was deliberately withholding food from people suspected of supporting the
MDC. "Mugabe is using the food crisis in Zimbabwe to force people
to vote for his party," he said while on a visit to South Africa this
week. Last month, the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended famine relief
operations in the south-western district of Insiza when ruling party militias
stole three tons of WFP maize and handed it out to Mugabe supporters immediately
before a by-election there. Analysts say deprivation of food aid and other
state support has been a weapon used repeatedly by Mugabe against his opponents
since soon after independence in 1980. Areas dominated by opposition groups
have complained of being ignored while the regime pours money, food and
infrastructure into traditional Zanu PF regions.
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- The "Humanitarian Situation Report" reports
that rural hospitals "have noted a marked increase" in the number
of cases of malnutrition and pellagra, a disease caused by starvation,
it said. Maize, Zimbabweans' staple diet, was selling on the black market
in urban areas at around four times the price fixed by the government.
"In most areas, it is not even available for purchase," the UN
said. Also in short supply were bread, milk and sugar. About six million
people in Zimbabwe are facing famine. The World Food Programme is planning
to feed three million people this month, while the number is expected to
reach 5,9 million by January. Three months ago WFP director James Morris
said during a visit to the southern African nation that after a meeting
with Mugabe he had been assured that private procurement of grain would
be permitted. The report said that there was enough seed available to grow
between 600,000 tons and 800,000 tons of maize in the cropping season just
started. "However, that is far below the national requirement of about
1,8 million tons," said the UN. The report said that the government
had bought 15,000 tons of seed for distribution from private seed companies,
while another 15,600 ton had been sold directly to farmers.
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- http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=5547
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