- The government of Zimbabwe may be planning to use food
scarcity as a political weapon in next year's elections, Human Rights Watch
said yesterday.
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- Millions of Zimbabweans are in danger of famine because
the president, Robert Mugabe, has refused to ask for international aid,
and there is increasing evidence to contradict his government's claim that
the country has sufficient food.
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- In the opposition stronghold of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's
second city, 125 people have died from malnutrition this year, it was reported
this week.
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- The toll in rural areas is unknown as there are no health
statistics unavailable.
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- Human Rights Watch said it feared that food under government
control would be restricted to those who supported Mr Mugabe's party, Zanu-PF.
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- By law maize must be transported and distributed by the
state Grain Marketing Board.
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- Rural people have to go to its local offices to buy subsidised
maize, and the board controls how much is sold in the cities.
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- "In recent years the grain board has been widely
accused of discriminating against supporters of the political opposition,"
HRW's report said.
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- Many witnesses say grain board officials turn away those
who do not have a Zanu-PF card.
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- The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube,
has accused Mr Mugabe of wanting to use food relief as a weapon to win
the polls.
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- "They are planning to starve people into submission,"
he said in London last month.
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- HRW's paper says the government must make a full disclosure
of the food stocks. By withholding vital information it is "gambling
with its citizens' access to food".
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- Earlier this week the Zimbabwean government said it was
looking forward to "an above-average national harvest".
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- But farm output has plummeted as a result of Mr Mugabe's
chaotic and often violent land seizures and failure to provide poor black
farmers with enough seed and fertiliser.
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- For the past three years the country has depended on
international food aid.
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- In May the government boasted that farmers had produced
a bumper crop of 2.4m tonnes of the staple grain, maize. Mr Mugabe said
there would be no need for international food aid. "We don't want
to choke on your food," he told an interviewer.
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- Experts, including the UN world food programme, dismissed
the estimate as a fantasy, but the government ordered the WFP to stop its
crop survey, saving its widely disputed figures from being factually contradicted.
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- The WFP has been forced to dismantle its operations in
Zimbabwe and dismiss nearly half its 230 staff.
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- Virtually all independent agricultural experts reject
Mr Mugabe's figures.
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- "Anyone driving through Zimbabwe can see that there
are not many fields with healthy maize crops," a local grain specialist
said. "Areas that used to produce large maize and wheat crops are
now lying fallow."
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- An estimated 4.8 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people
will need food assistance in the coming year, the Zimbabwe Vulnerability
Assessment Committee says.
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- To avert a famine last year, the WFP provided food to
nearly six million people at the height of the country's lean season.
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- It is currently feeding about 650,000 a month.
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- The privately owned Standard newspaper questioned assurances
that Zimbabwe had plenty of food when it reported this week that 125 people
had died of malnutrition-related causes in Bulawayo. Twenty-one of them
were children under five.
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- The mayor of Bulawayo, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, confirmed
the number, saying it came from city records.
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- He said it was the responsibility of Mr Mugabe's government
to feed the people. "This definitely needs a government approach if
we are to save lives," he told the Standard.
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- The government reacted with fury, threatening action
against the mayor of Bulawayo and other city officials, and legal action
against the newspaper.
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- "We are sure of our story," the Standard's
editor, Bornwell Chakaodza, told the Guardian yesterday.
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- John Makumbe, a civic leader and political scientist,
said: "The truth is that there is not enough food in Zimbabwe and
the government is hiding that.
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- "I have just come back from my home area of Buhera
and I can tell you that there is very little food there. And in Matabeleland
people are literally starving. People are desperate for humanitarian assistance."
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- Mr Makumbe said the government intended to use food to
lure political support.
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- "The public will have to toe the Zanu-PF line in
order to get any food."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,1282132,00.html
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