The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Saturday, 8 June, 2002, 12:55 GMT 13:55 UK
Mugabe's food trip provokes scorn
Opposition politicians in Zimbabwe have expressed surprise
that President Robert Mugabe plans to attend next week's summit on world hunger
in Rome.
However, countries that host United Nations institutions are required to allow all leaders to attend UN meetings. The heads of state and ministers attending the four-day meeting are expected to commit themselves to further efforts to substantially reduce the number of hungry people worldwide. However the summit takes place against the background of a worsening food crisis in southern Africa, including Zimbabwe. An estimated 12.8 million people in six countries are at risk of starvation because of drought, floods, government mismanagement and economic instability. Colonial legacy "It is ironic and laughable that a person who has masterminded the impoverishment of the country and the mass starvation of children ... will have the gall to go to a food conference", Welshman Ncube, Secretary-General of Zimbabwe¿s opposition Movement for Democratic Change told The Times of London.
The Zimbabwean state-run Herald newspaper said Mr Mugabe had left on Friday for the summit. According to some reports, he is expected to strongly attack the legacy of colonialism and meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan when he attends sessions on Monday and Tuesday. There has been no official comment from the Italian Government on the anticipated arrival of Mr Mugabe and other Zimbabwean ministers. Last month, Mr Mugabe attended the world children's summit in New York, despite a travel ban imposed by the United States as part of international sanctions against the Zimbabwean leader and senior officials. In April, the head of Zimbabwe's police force was allowed to visit France despite a travel ban imposed as part of international sanctions against President Mugabe and his senior officials. Emergency measures According to a study by UN agencies last month, Zimbabwe's maize harvest this year is expected to be slightly more than 500,000 tonnes - just over a quarter of the average crop produced in the last decade. The shortfall is already being felt in urban and remote rural areas. The government has declared a state of disaster as worsening shortages threaten widespread famine. It has blamed the crisis on a drought, but the World Food Programme says agricultural disruption caused by the confiscation of white-owned farms has also contributed to the problem |
Swiss farmers face
eviction in Zimbabwe | ||||||
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Audio / Video / Links | ||||||
In the latest
development in the bitter land dispute, which began two years ago, the
government in Harare seized the title deeds to 53 Swiss-owned properties.
According to the Swiss foreign ministry, 28 of those 53 farms are now occupied
by veterans of Zimbabwe’s war of independence. "We have 13 Swiss nationals... affected by the land acquisition act," Swiss chargé d'affaires in Harare, Eduard Jaun, told swissinfo. "These properties are the so-called Section 8, which means that they have to vacate the farms within 90 days." With tensions escalating and prospects bleak many Swiss landowners are now thinking of giving up their livelihoods and leaving the country. The problems began when President Mugabe’s government initiated wide-reaching reforms in July 2000 aimed at redistributing the 70 per cent of land owned by the white minority to landless blacks. Many white farmers have died in violence associated with the handover of more than seven million hectares of land. | ||||||
Mounting
anxiety | ||||||
In the first phase of
the reform 20 Swiss-owned farms were designated for redistribution. Thanks to
the intervention of the foreign ministry in Bern 12 of these were later granted
a reprieve. But since the presidential election in March saw Mugabe confirmed in his post a new wave of land expropriations has taken place, accompanied by an upsurge in violence. “In his speeches President Robert Mugabe now talks of repossessing all farms,” said Swiss foreign ministry spokeswoman Muriel Berset Kohen. The anxiety among the white population was now tangible, she added, and was spreading all the time. After the Dutch and the Italians, the Swiss own the largest area of cultivated land in Zimbabwe. The foreign ministry said it was giving assistance to 20 Swiss farmers, including the 13 directly affected by the expropriation of the 53 properties. | ||||||
Strained
relations | ||||||
The ministry
spokeswoman said diplomatic efforts were continuing on behalf of the farmers,
but she said relations between Switzerland and Zimbabwe had become strained
after March 19 when Switzerland followed the lead of the European Union in
imposing sanctions on the government in Harare. “Despite everything we will continue efforts to settle matters with Harare,” Berset Kohen said. swissinfo | ||||||
07.06.2002 - 11:59 |
Comment from The National Post (Canada), 7 June
How Canada could help Africa
Taking a page from the playbook of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, has begun using food as a weapon against his own people. At least half of Zimbabwe's 12 million residents are reportedly at risk of starvation because government marketing boards and food programs will release food only to supporters of Mr. Mugabe's Zanu PF party. Like all dictators, Mr. Mugabe, who had himself re-elected President in a rigged election last March, puts his own power lust first, the lives of his people second. In recent years, his security forces have taken to torturing and murdering political opponents, academics, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Armies of Zanu PF-approved thugs have raided white-owned farms and forcibly evicted the owners. More than 400 businesses were demolished and 10,000 jobs lost in this brutal process.
Given all this, why did the West stand by and do nothing, while Mr. Mugabe cruised into a rigged election everyone knew he would win? One reason is Jean Chretien, the Canadian Prime Minister. He intervened just before the March vote to prevent the Commonwealth from imposing sanctions. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane in early March, Britain, Australia and others were set to expel Zimbabwe because of Mr. Mugabe's crimes. Mr. Chretien, however, insisted the Commonwealth strike a committee and study the situation rather than take immediate action. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had warned at about the same time that Mr. Mugabe's tactics of "intimidation and violence," would produce an election result "that does not reflect the will of the people." Still, Mr. Chretien wanted to "let the people of Zimbabwe express their wishes."
Mr. Chretien's motivation for defending Mr. Mugabe seems clear: He has recently rebranded himself as an Africa champion, and was thus eager to ingratiate himself with Africa's leaders, most of whom are loath to see one of their own singled out for condemnation. The Prime Minister is intent on turning this month's G8 summit in Kananaskis, at which he will play host, into a summit on African economic development. He had a $500-million Africa Fund inserted into this year's federal budget, and has toured Africa to promote his vision, which he also hopes will form part of his historical legacy. How ironic that, for all his professed concern for the world's poorest continent, Mr. Chretien is as responsible as any other world leader for the fact that Mr. Mugabe is still in position to develop one of Africa's best known products – starving people. Let us hope Mr. Mugabe's latest outrage does not cost tens of thousands of Zimbabweans their lives. If Mr. Chretien is truly concerned about Africa, and not just about how history remembers him, he should recognize his folly in backing the tyrant, and renounce him now.