| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Harare - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has said
that George Bush and Tony
Blair are "liars" and should stand trial for
genocide, state television
reported on Sunday, just days ahead of a crucial
visit to Africa by the US
president.
"They have told lies to the
world. They have committed genocide, and they
are criminals these two, Bush
and Blair," Mugabe told thousands of
supporters at a rally Saturday in
southern Zimbabwe.
Stepping up anti-Bush sentiment ahead of his visit to
the region next week,
Mugabe said the US president and the British prime
minister should stand
trial for invading Iraq.
"They have to stand
before the international court to answer for their
international crimes," the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) showed
Mugabe saying.
Bush is
due in South Africa on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of a tour of
several
African countries including Botswana, Uganda, Nigeria and
Senegal.
According to an earlier report, Mugabe warned Bush not to tell
southern
Africa's leaders how to run their countries during his
visit.
"If he (Bush) is coming to dictate to us to how we should run our
countries,
then we will say 'Go back. Go home Yankee," Mugabe was quoted as
saying.
"Any dictating to us will never be heeded by any of us in this
region,"
Mugabe added.
Bush wants South African leader Thabo Mbeki to
put pressure on the
79-year-old Mugabe and Zimbabwe to hold fresh
presidential elections.
The US and Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change rejected
Mugabe's victory in presidential elections last
year, saying the poll was
rigged and marred by violence. - Sapa-AFP
Independent (UK)
Elias Mudzuri: 'We thought Mugabe would deliver. But
things just get worse'
Monday Interview: Mayor of Harare
By Anne
Penketh
07 July 2003
Serving as a city mayor after campaigning on
an anti-corruption platform is
risky enough in most countries that have known
decades of one-party rule. In
President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, it looks
positively suicidal.
In little more than a year in office, Elias Mudzuri,
46, the Mayor of
Harare, and the city's first leader from the ranks of the
opposition, has
faced police harassment, a smear campaign, arrest and now
suspension for
challenging the endemic corruption that has marked the Mugabe
era.
Mr Mudzuri was triumphantly elected in Harare, with 80 per cent of
the vote,
in March last year, in elections that brought in three other mayors
from the
Movement for Democratic Change. In Harare, the council changed
hands, with
MDC councillors taking 44 of the 45 wards.
Mr Mudzuri, a
former city council engineer who calls himself Engineer Elias
Mudzuri on his
visiting card, identified corruption as the number one issue.
"My main
mission was that I would not tolerate corruption. That still is my
main
mission. They are stopping me because I was getting to the core of
the
corruption," he said.
Mr Mudzuri was suspended on 29 April for
refusing to accept directives sent
by Ignatius Chombo, the local government
minister, and for not delivering
clean water to the 4.5 million residents of
Harare and neighbouring areas
served by the city council. As Mayor, Mr
Mudzuri is responsible for
providing services such as water, sewerage and
rubbish collection.
The trouble, said Mr Mudzuri, is that Mr Chombo
issued a directive every
time the city council identified a corruption case.
And his response to the
accusation of failing to provide chemicals for the
water is: "If anything,
it is the government that failed to give fuel, food,
anything basic ... The
government is overall in charge of what we should be
doing. They simply
wanted me out."
After flying home from London
today, at the end of three weeks' enforced
leave, Mr Mudzuri will try to
return to his mayoral office in defiance of
the government.
"I'm still
a Mayor," he says, pointing out that he has challenged the
government order
through the courts. There has not yet been a verdict
although the case was
heard on 27 May. "The suspension is illegal. I shall
remain at work until the
court has made its ruling," he said.
Mr Mudzuri's administration had
begun to expose "a lot of things" as he and
his colleagues worked to overhaul
the auditing and accounting system at City
Hall, he said. What sort of
things? "There were contractors being overpaid
money when they didn't deserve
it. You find that a contractor is paid Z$18m
[about £13,500] for doing
nothing. And we also exposed certain officials at
a high level who were
stopping us from getting to the truth. We discovered
that some land had been
given to the ruling party supporters, not through
the law."
As the
investigations proceeded, however, Mr Chombo decided that all
matters
connected with finance had to go through his office, "which is why
nothing
ever happened. Chombo wanted to interfere and stop me every time. But
I
refused to take illegal directives, which is one of his main
accusations
against me," Mr Mudzuri said.
In January, as civil unrest
mounted throughout the country amid worsening
food and fuel shortages, Mr
Mudzuri was arrested for holding an illegal
meeting, under draconian laws
pushed through by Mr Mugabe before a
controversial presidential election in
which he won another six-year term.
But this was not Mr Mudzuri's first
brush with the law: in May 1999, when he
was a council engineer, he was on
his way to a memorial service for his
brother when he was involved in a car
accident in which his another brother
was killed. The car was a
write-off.
Although no foul play was suspected, the authorities claimed
later that he
had used the car illegally for a private purpose. "I was
refusing to toe the
line, so they had to find some way of pushing me out," Mr
Mudzuri said. He
was fired, and it took him two and a half years to clear his
name. His
appeal went as far as the Supreme Court, but the case was withdrawn
by the
council after his election as Mayor.
Like many of his
generation, Mr Mudzuri was a "freedom fighter" alongside Mr
Mugabe in the
struggle against white minority rule, which ended 23 years ago
with
independence. Looking back at why so many former supporters turned
their
backs on Zanu-PF, Mr Mudzuri, who is a high flier within the Movement
for
Democratic Change, can see no single pivotal point. "It started a long
way
back. Over 10 years, people thought things would change. We thought that
our
hero Mugabe was going to deliver. Then you give up after some time
because
things are just getting worse," he said.
Ironically, Mr Mugabe once
encouraged the formation of other political
parties, which gave rise to the
Movement of Democratic Change, set up by its
current leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, a trade union leader at the time. Mr
Mudzuri was another founding
member.
Mr Mudzuri is convinced that the Zimbabwean President, who is 79,
has to
step down. "The country's on its knees, the economy's not working,
after 23
years he has no new ideas. He has to go but I think he wants
assurances that
no one will touch him."
The opposition remains intent
on a peaceful regime change, if free and fair
elections can be held, he
stressed. But he called for international pressure
to be brought to bear so
that human rights in Zimbabwe were respected, to
create a level playing field
on which internationally scrutinised elections
could be held.
"This is
where we challenge the international community to say 'you can't
leave
somebody to oppress his people'. Look at all these treaties they
signed at
the Commonwealth, the SADC [Southern Africa Development
Community], on human
rights. There is no single country where you have seen
so many MPs go to
prison, or a mayor going to prison for addressing people,"
he
said.
"All the Zimbabwean people are asking of the international
community is an
environment for free and fair elections.
"If that
could be created, and there were free and fair elections, and the
police and
army were controlled by someone else, we are home and dry. We
just need an
election. We believe that if Mugabe wins a friendly election he
should
continue to be President, and he knows that he cannot win a free and
fair
election. That is our only challenge."
In the meantime, the West, and the
Commonwealth, stand by while "people are
beaten, they go to hospitals, then
people give up. We need intervention to
stop the beating, torture of people,
the invasion of people's privacy, the
abuse of human rights. The intervention
must come, otherwise we are all
going to give up. We're all going to
die."
Mr Mudzuri argues that it is in Britain's interest for Zimbabwe to
regain
its stability; he contends that half a million Zimbabweans have fled
to
Britain to escape the turmoil. South Africa has even more reason
to
intervene, he said, because there is a constant flow of refugees across
its
border.
Asked if he was disappointed with the attitude of the
South African
President, Thabo Mbeki, who has adopted a "softly softly"
approach towards
Mr Mugabe, Mr Mudzuri replied: "I wouldn't want to say I'm
disappointed with
Mbeki. I think he should have done more, and he knows that
he is the biggest
trading partner, and he cannot just look away because all
our citizens are
running to South Africa. More than a million citizens have
run to South
Africa, and he cannot ignore that. And he cannot ignore that the
opposition
is always in prison. I've been arrested, the Mayor of Bulawayo has
been
arrested. Why?"
Mr Mudzuri said that Mr Mbeki should be in the
front line with Nigeria and
Don Mackinnon, the Commonwealth secretary
general, in preparing the ground
for fair elections in Zimbabwe.
The
presidential election in March last year, in which Mr Mugabe won
re-election
over Mr Tsvangirai, was condemned as flawed by many countries.
"The major
issue is that Mugabe is irrelevant. The major issue is, let's go
back to the
election, and whatever discussions they want to come to, we want
to go back
to an election supervised by the international community."
The MDC is
calling for negotiations on a transitional authority that would
head the
country for an interim period before an election. Mr Mudzuri
compared the
situation to that after the independence war in 1978, in which
an interim
government paved the way for elections in 1979.
"We need a transitional
authority that could pick up a person like [Nelson]
Mandela, whom I believe
should run something like what happened during the
time of Lord Soames, who
came up with an interim team for three months, and
the two forces which
didn't trust each other came up with a solution that
worked.
"So we
are saying that the same thing could be employed here, because we
have a
difficult person here who claims sovereignty, with an opposition
which has
won the election, but which was stolen from them.
"All we are saying is
that we still want to legitimise this, by going to an
election. With the
possible suspension of the constitution for three months,
with the police and
army under an interim leader, I'm sure we would have
peace," he said.
Zimbabwe Reiterates Reconstruction Aid Offer to Angola
Angola
Press Agency (Luanda)
July 5, 2003
Posted to the web July 7,
2003
Luanda
Visiting Zimbabwean minister of Public Works and
Housing, Ignatius Chombo,
Friday in Luanda reiterated his country's readiness
to assist Angola with
its reconstruction.
The minister reaffirmed this
after an audience granted to him by Angolan
prime minister, Fernando da
Piedade Dias dos Santos.
During the meeting that he regarded as being
of courtesy, the two officials
exchanged views on the existing relations
between the two countries.
Concerning cooperation, Ignatius Chombo
assured that the support being
offered by his country could focus on the
rehabilitation of infrastructures
destroyed by war, such as bridges and roads
and even on the construction of
fresh economic houses.
Ignatius
Chombo, who is in Angola since Wednesday, at the head of a
delegation that
includes 15 businessmen and bankers, met with his local
counterpart, Higino
Carneiro, visited the cement factory "Nova Cimangola"
and other undertakings
and tourist resorts in central Kwanza-Sul province.
During his Thursday's
meeting with the Angolan colleague, minister Chombo
said his country was
ready to assist Angola with its reconstruction.
He said on the occasion
that Angola's problems concerned all member
countries of the Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC), therefore
deserving total support from the
countries of the region.
Minister Chombo is closing his Angola visit
today with the signing of a
protocol of cooperation between the two
countries.
Children Murdered to Rescue Failed Businesses
The Herald
(Harare)
July 5, 2003
Posted to the web July 6, 2003
Tandayi
Motsi
Harare
Harare grade two pupil Sam Nhamoinesu was on his way home
from school when a
twin-cab vehicle suddenly stopped next to
him.
There were four men in the vehicle and one of them beckoned him to
come
nearer. At first Sam was hesitant but after assurances from the men
that
they meant no harm he obliged.
"Maybe you have forgotten I am
your father's friend and I used to visit your
home long ago. Actually we are
on our way to your house right now so we want
to give you a lift, get in,"
said one of the men with wry smile.
Sam reluctantly accepted the offer
without knowing the evil intentions of
these men.
The twin-cab took
off at high speed and after an hour Sam realised that he
is now in an
unfamiliar place. He pleaded with the men to take him home but
in
vain.
Sam was taken to a secluded place where he was murdered and his
body parts
removed for ritual purposes. They were to be sold to a businessman
to
improve his fortunes.
The above scenario is similar to several
cases of ritual murders that have
been reported recently.
In ritual
murders, human body parts are mixed with some herbs in the belief
that this
enhanced one's business and usually such advice came from the
traditional
healers.
One wonders what has really gone wrong in the Zimbabwean society
that has
driven some people to commit such diabolic acts just for the love of
money.
About two weeks ago, an eight-year-old girl from Nangalanga
village under
Chief Siabuwa in Binga was allegedly killed and her body thrown
into a river
along the Binga-Karoi road in what is suspected to be a ritual
murder.
The girl is believed to have been murdered in the bush near her
homestead
while on her way from school.
Her body was later recovered
underneath the bridge with cuts on her throat
and mouth while her private
parts were missing.
Furthermore, three suspects recently appeared in
court in connection with
the grisly murder of a 75-year-old widow in
Domboshava communal area in
Goromonzi district. The suspects were alleged to
have raped the widow before
killing her on the instructions of a Harare
businessman who wanted to use
human brain for ritual purposes.
The
three suspects were allegedly paid $900 000 for the job.
It was alleged
that after axing the woman to death, the trio broke the
skull, extracted the
brain and some blood as these were supposed to be mixed
with herbs.
In
a similar incident last month, four men kidnapped two teenage boys from
Mbare
who were on their way to see a friend.
The kidnappers blindfolded the
boys before taking them to an unknown house
where they were supposed to be
killed for ritual purposes.
The teenagers were lucky to escape death as
the businessman told their
kidnappers that they had brought older boys and he
wanted younger ones.
The two boys were later dumped in the Msasa area
where they were rescued by
a security guard while still
blindfolded.
What is particularly disturbing about ritual murders is that
in most cases
the actual killer is the only person arrested, convicted and
sentenced while
the traditional healer and the paymaster are left to go
scot-free.
There has never been a case where the paymaster or the
advising healer have
been brought to court, let alone arrested.
It
appears the only way to deter ritual murders is to make it very clear
that
everyone who is a partner to this crime will be punished accordingly.
A
Harare businessman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, castigated
some
unscrupulous businesspeople who resorted to ritual murders in order to
boost
their businesses.
"Such practices should be condemned by all
right thinking people," he said.
"The success of any business depends on
proper planning coupled with
perseverance not the use of black
magic."
He said it was painful for a parent to lose a child through a
ritual murder.
Prominent sociologist and Zimbabwe National Traditional
Healers Association
president, Professor Gordon Chavunduka, lambasted
traditional healers who
gave advice on ritual murders.
"As an
association we do not condone such practices and we discourage our
members
from being part of this evil," he said.
Professor Chavunduka conceded
that indeed some traditional healers were
advising their clients to commit
ritual murders as a way of enhancing their
fortunes.
He said it had
not yet been scientifically proven that ritual murders
improved one's
business.
"I believe this does not work at all but some times there is
coincidence in
that after someone has performed the rituals, the prospects of
his or her
business brightens and psychological this may lead one to believe
that the
rituals have worked," said Professor Chavunduka.
Police
spokesman Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said investigations
involving
ritual murders were complex.
"Normally when we are investigating such
cases, the accused implicate the
traditional healer but it is difficult for
us to arrest the healer because
of the lack of evidence unless if he/she was
directly involved in the
murder," he said.
The practice of ritual
murders is not unique to Zimbabwe, as this is fairly
common in other
countries in the region especially in South Africa.
According to a recent
survey in South Africa at least one person falls
victim to ritual murders
each month in that country.
Other experts, however, believe that the
ritual murders in the country are
beyond 10 every month, many of the victims
being children.
Criticism of Mugabe divides U.S. blacks
Rachel L. Swarns
NYT
Monday, July 7, 2003
WASHINGTON When the TransAfrica
Forum decided to speak out last month
against Zimbabwe's president, Robert
Mugabe, for condoning the jailing,
beating and killing of black opposition
party supporters, it shouldn't have
been all that surprising.
.
After
all, for decades, TransAfrica, a research and lobbying group based
here, has
been speaking out on the struggles of Africans on the continent
and
elsewhere.
.
In the 1980's, for instance, it led the anti-apartheid
marches that helped
press the American government to change its policy of
"constructive
engagement" with the white government of South
Africa.
.
In the 90's the group protested against the repressive black
regimes in
Haiti and Nigeria.
.
In this latest action the president of
TransAfrica and other prominent black
Americans from Africa Action, an
advocacy group here, from Howard University
and from church and labor unions
wrote a public letter to Mugabe, assailing
what they described as the
"increasing intolerant, repressive and violent
policies of your
government."
.
But the decision to condemn Mugabe publicly - which was
hailed as long
overdue in some quarters - has also touched off an outcry
among some black
intellectuals, activists and Africa watchers. Mugabe, who
has led Zimbabwe
since white rule ended in 1980, is still considered a hero
by some
African-Americans. And in some e-mail messages and on radio talk
shows, the
signers of the letter have been described as politically naïve,
sellouts and
misguided betrayers of Africa's liberation
struggle.
.
Angry critics have sent e-mail messages to those who signed
the letter,
saying in one instance that they "do not represent
African-Americans."
.
The furor has highlighted a long-simmering debate
about how to respond to
authoritarian leaders in Africa when those leaders
happen to be black.
.
Bill Fletcher Jr., the president of TransAfrica,
says black Americans cannot
afford to romanticize African leaders if they
hope to remain relevant to the
struggles on the continent. They must be
willing to condemn wrongdoing, he
said, even if that means criticizing some
revered leaders.
.
"When the enemy was evil white people in South Africa,
that was easy,"
Fletcher said. "But when the enemy becomes someone who looks
like us, we're
very skittish about taking that on."
.
"It's very
difficult to accept that a ruling class has emerged in Zimbabwe
that is
oppressing its own people, but you've got to face the reality," he
said. "I
felt like we had to speak out."
.
In the 1970's some blacks quietly
questioned whether they should continue
supporting Uganda's violent despot,
Idi Amin, but decided against
criticizing him publicly. In the 1980's some
Africa watchers made a similar
decision about Angola's government, which was
dogged by complaints of
corruption.
.
In 1996 Carol Moseley Braun, an
Illinois Democrat who was a senator then,
stirred a furor when she flew to
Africa to visit General Sani Abacha,
Nigeria's corrupt dictator. By then
TransAfrica and other prominent black
individuals and organizations had
already started a public campaign to
criticize and isolate Nigeria's
government, which was detaining and killing
its critics.
.
"We view the
political repression under way in Zimbabwe as intolerable and
in complete
contradiction of the values and principles that were both the
foundation of
your liberation struggle and of our solidarity with that
struggle," the group
said in its letter to Mugabe.
.
Critics complain, however, that Fletcher
and his colleagues are playing down
the importance of the ongoing struggle
for land in Zimbabwe. They say Mugabe
has been demonized in the West because
he decided to seize white-owned farms
on land stolen from blacks during
British colonial rule. Zimbabwe's tiny
white minority - less than 1 percent
of the population - owned more than
half of the fertile land until the
government began seizing most of it in
2000.
.
"I'm not on his side
with respect to his repression of the opposition,"
Ronald Walters, a
professor of government at the University of Maryland,
said of Mugabe. "But I
am on the side of the people who claim there's a
justice issue in terms of
the land. You can't escape the racial dynamic, and
you can't escape the
political history."
.
Some critics say the violence in Zimbabwe has mostly
occurred between
supporters and opponents of land redistribution. They also
fear that the
Bush administration, which has signaled that it might intervene
in Liberia,
might use the letter from TransAfrica and Africa Action to
suggest that
prominent black Americans favor an American intervention in
Zimbabwe.
.
Fletcher said he would vigorously oppose an American-led
military
intervention in Zimbabwe. TransAfrica also opposes the idea of
sending
American troops to Liberia, saying an African peacekeeping force
financed by
the American government would be preferable.
.
The New York
Times
Government Continues to Blow Reserve Bank Funds
Zimbabwe
Independent (Harare)
July 4, 2003
Posted to the web July 6,
2003
Ngoni Chanakira
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)'s
weekly advance to government continues
to escalate, shooting up from $3,8
billion in early March to $50,3 billion
by the end of April.
The
central bank says Zimbabwe's economy has been contracting since 1996
when
both productivity and economic activity nose-dived from their peak
attained
in that year.
In figures for May released this week, the central bank
said weekly advances
to government steadily ballooned from $3,793 billion on
March 14 to $50,291
billion on May 16.
The RBZ did not shed light on
what projects the money had been used for, but
analysts speculate that the
bulk of this borrowing went to pay salaries of
the bloated civil
service.
In less than two months the figure more than doubled.
The
RBZ said during this time lending to banks increased while credit
to
government declined.
Total government domestic debt as of March 14
stood at $344,9 billion, which
increased to $446,101 billion as of May
16.
The RBZ said: "During the week ending April 30 2003, cheque
transactions
amounted to $708 billion. Of this, 84,2% constituted high value
items, and
the remainder, low value. By volume, low value transactions
accounted for
80%, while 20% related to high value."
Despite
government insistence that commercial agriculture was flourishing
and tobacco
chalking up billions, the bank said Zimbabwe's foreign currency
earnings from
the golden crop continued to decrease.
The tobacco farming community has
not been spared by government's fast-track
land resettlement programme which
has witnessed large-scale commercial
farmers removed from their land and
replaced by new farmers with less
experience.
Some of the new farmers
diversified into maize production instead of
tobacco - a major foreign
currency earner.
The RBZ said as of May 9 this year, cumulative tobacco
sales amounting to
1,9 million kilogrammes of tobacco had been sold at an
average price of
US$1,83 per kg.
This compares to 4,7 million kg sold
at an average price of US$1,81, during
the corresponding period last
year.
In its unaudited results for the six-month period ended April
30,
heavyweight tobacco firm Tobacco Sales Floors Ltd (TSL) this week
told
shareholders that urgent attempts needed to be made to revitalise
tobacco
production over the next few months.
TSL said: "Latest
estimates of this year's tobacco crop indicate a volume of
approximately 80
million kg, less than half of last year's production. The
prospects for next
year's crop are similarly poor."
Government however continues to insist
that more tobacco would be sold this
year because of the "huge success" of
the small-scale farming sector.
The small-scale sector has faced
nightmares because tobacco is an expensive
crop to grow and commercial banks
have refused to lend new farmers money,
saying the industry was now high
risk.
The RBZ said since 1995 Zimbabwe's output and productivity had
followed a
"procyclical pattern".
This pattern means that the
country's productivity had been rising and
falling in tandem with economic
performance.
"This confirms the fact that a country's productivity growth
plays an
important role in helping it achieve economic growth and higher
standards of
living," the RBZ said in its report.
IOL
SA public rush to help Zim animal lover
July 06 2003 at
12:12PM
By Edwin Naidu
South Africans have
come to the aid of a Zimbabwean animal rights activist
featured in The Sunday
Independent last week.
Meryl Harrison was threatened with death following
her battle to save or
mercy-kill domestic animals in Zimbabwe that are
starving, being tortured or
dying.
She has a potentially fatal
condition that results in a rapid heartbeat. The
ailment requires surgery
that she cannot afford.
On Tuesday, listeners to the John Robbie Show on
Talk Radio 702 pledged
almost R60 000 and offered material assistance for the
operation that could
save Harrison's life. A heart surgeon and another
medical expert have
pledged surgery services should she require an
operation.
'It was an extraordinary outpouring of
charity'
Robbie said that after reading the report in The Sunday Independent
the
radio station decided to interview Harrison, 64, because of her
courageous
attempts to help distressed milking cows on Zimbabwean farms
occupied by
so-called war veterans.
"We spoke to her on Tuesday; her
story was amazing. Afterwards, on air, I
asked her how much she would need
for the operation, and she said R60 000.
We didn't launch a special appeal
but just mentioned that perhaps listeners
may be able to help," he
said.
Robbie said the station had been inundated with calls of support in
cash and
kind: "It was an extraordinary outpouring of charity. We had
pledges, offers
of flights from three different airport companies, ambulance
services, among
others."
He said Talk Radio 702 would arrange for
Harrison to be flown to
Johannesburg for a medical examination to determine
what treatment she
needed.
"This was a special morning for us because
she didn't talk about wanting
help, she was just doing her job but our
listeners told us they wanted to
help her," he said.
'I'm so
overwhelmed by everyone's generosity'
Robbie said although the station had
supported major fundraising campaigns,
including raising more than R1-million
for Cotlands baby sanctuary, it had
occasionally made special appeals for
those in need of help.
"On my show not so long ago we made an appeal for
help to send a young black
athlete who did not have the money to compete
overseas. When someone comes
forward with a need, if we can, we help, and
it's our listeners who show
their generosity."
On Friday, Harrison,
who had another busy week rescuing animals on another
farm in Zimbabwe, said
she was overwhelmed at the generosity of the people
who had offered her
financial and material help. "I was on my way to the
farm when I received a
call. I just parked on the side of the road and began
to cry," she
said.
Harrison said she would be arriving in Johannesburg on July 14 to
undergo
tests by a local heart specialist.
"I'm so overwhelmed by
everyone's generosity, now I just want to get fit and
return to work," she
said.
Daily News
Bulawayo faces severe food crisis
BULAWAYO – Efforts by the municipality and welfare organisations to
tackle
the impact of severe food shortages in Zimbabwe’s second city are
being
hampered by the unchecked rise of people needing food aid and the lack
of an
urban international food aid programme.
According to statistics
from the Bulawayo City Council, 119 deaths due
to malnutrition and related
causes were recorded in Bulawayo over the first
four months of this year. The
majority of them were of children under five
years and elderly people over
the age of 50.
These groups are among the people who have been
hardest hit by the
severe shortage of maize-meal and bread, Zimbabwe’s staple
foodstuffs. The
shortages are the result of drought and a controversial
government land
reform programme that has cut food production by more than 50
percent.
Although the Bulawayo City Council could not provide
statistics on
food insecurity in the city, municipality officials said the
situation was
“out of control”.
Most people in Bulawayo have
gone for more than three months without
maize-meal and bread and are being
forced to rely on expensive alternatives.
Basic commodity prices have risen
significantly in the past year, making
food unaffordable for low-income
earners.
Bulawayo Executive Mayor Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube told the
Daily News:
“Council is aware of the gravity of the hunger situation and we
have since
approached several welfare organisations to assist in feeding the
people,
especially orphans whose number is increasing by the
day.”
He said the municipality has launched a pilot supplementary
feeding
programme for children under five years at clinics in the
city’s
high-density areas of Mzilikazi, Mpopoma and Tshabalala.
The programme has the financial assistance of Help, a German
non-governmental
organisation.
The Bulawayo mayor said there were plans to extend
the programme to
all other clinics in the city next month.
Individual councillors, the Catholic Church and other welfare agencies
have
also stepped in to help tackle the impact of food insecurity in
the
city.
But the assistance they are able to give is only a
drop in the ocean
as food insecurity worsens in Zimbabwe.
United
Nations agencies say about 5.4 million people need emergency
food aid in the
country, about one million of them in urban areas, which are
not part of the
food aid programmes run by international
humanitarian
organisations.
International humanitarian
assistance has been concentrated in the
rural areas, where more than four
million people are threatened with
starvation.
But Bulawayo
municipality officials said food insecurity in urban
areas was also becoming
critical.
Bulawayo alderman Charles Mpofu of Nketa suburb, which
has a large
population, said there was little maize coming from the
state-controlled
Grain Marketing Board, the country’s sole grain
trader.
This has worsened food shortages in the city, severely
affecting
terminally ill people who require stable diets to maintain their
health.
“A combination of hunger and illness surely reduces the
life span of
the person. People now look up to us as their councillors to
assist them and
they are always on our doorsteps asking for help,” said
Mpofu, adding that
there were about 1 500 terminally ill people in his
ward.
Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, dramatised by high inflation
and
unprecedented unemployment, has also worsened the problem, with
basic
commodity prices so high that many people are forced to reduce the
number of
meals they have a day.
Mpofu said a bucket of
maize-meal, for instance, was selling for $6
500.
Another
Bulawayo councillor, David Ndlovu of Nkulumane 12, said there
were about 4
200 people in his ward in urgent need of food aid.
“We have had no
maize-meal deliveries in the past three months and I
don’t know how people
are surviving. When people have no food, it has an
impact on the death rate,
especially among people suffering from HIV/AIDS,”
he said.
The
Catholic church and Methule, a humanitarian organisation whose
Ndebele name
means “relieve”, are running supplementary feeding programmes
in Ndlovu’s
ward.
Methule is funded from the AIDS fund and caters for AIDS
orphans,
while the church feeds people as and when it has food
supplies.
Stars Mathe, the councillor for Cowdray Park, one of the
largest
suburbs in the city, is also running a supplementary feeding scheme
catering
for children, breast-feeding women and terminally ill
people.
The programme has been running since December last year
and
beneficiaries are given soya porridge on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays
and
Sundays.
More than 4 000 children in the suburb are fed
under the programme
while at least 11 200 adults are also in need of food aid
and are constantly
seeking Mathe’s help.
The programme is
supported by the local clinic, which screens needy
people.
A
community health officer at the clinic, who spoke on condition of
anonymity,
said the clinic used to refer up to 10 children a week for the
feeding
programme, but this number has since risen.
The health officer told
the Daily News: “We have discovered that some
of the children would not be
suffering from any disease when they are
brought to the clinic. It would just
be hunger, so we refer them to Mathe,
where they are included in the feeding
programme. We then monitor the child’
s progress every month to ensure that
they are improving.”
The wards in Cowdray Park have been
sub-divided into 17 sections with
an average of 250 children a section, each
allocated 20 kilogrammes of soya
meal a day. Feeding is done between 12 noon
and 2 pm and includes some
school children.
From Sandra
Mujokoro
Own Correspondent
Daily News
Bread shoots to $1 000 a loaf
BAKERS
yesterday unilaterally hiked the price of bread from $550 to
$1 000 a loaf
following a more than 1000 percent increase in the Grain
Marketing Board
(GMB)’s selling price of wheat.
Bakers’ Association of Zimbabwe
chairman Armitage Chikwavira, who is
also managing director of Aroma
Bakeries, told The Daily News that the bread
price increase was necessary if
bakeries were to remain viable.
He said the price of bread had been
kept artificially low for too
long, adversely affecting Zimbabwe’s baking
industry.
Bread is one of the basic commodities whose price is
controlled by the
government, which has to be consulted before manufacturers
can increase the
price of controlled goods.
Chikwavira said an
application for a bread price increase had been
submitted to the Industry
Ministry, which had yet to respond.
“The problem is that government
has kept (price) controls on bread.
Before you can increase the price of
bread, you have to apply to the
government, through the Ministry of Industry
and International Trade, which
we have done. The government has not responded
to our needs, outlined in our
application.”
“In the absence of
that response, bakers have resolved to effect the
$1 000 price,” he
said.
It was not possible to reach Industry Minister Samuel
Mumbengegwi for
comment on the matter yesterday. His mobile phone went
unanswered.
The Bakers’ Association of Zimbabwe chairman said the
bread price hike
had been necessitated by the increase last Thursday in the
GMB’s wheat
selling price from $30 100
a tonne to $366 584, an
increase of 1 117.9 percent.
He said millers had in turn been
forced to come up with a price that
would enable them to remain
viable.
“That viability price has been arrived at $886 000 for a
tonne, up
from $102 000 a tonne, an
increase of 868.53 percent,”
Chikwavira said.
“The millers have already started paying the new
GMB price of $366
584,” he added. “In order to remain viable, they have to
pass on that price
to the bakers, which they have done effective from Friday
last week.
“The bakers now have two options, first being to stop
production
altogether if they can’t pass on the increase to their consumers,
or they
have to continue producing and charge higher than the government
gazetted
price of $225 for every loaf. If they want to continue, they have to
charge
the higher price, which has now been worked out to $1 000 a
loaf.”
However, a snap survey by The Daily News yesterday showed
that some
shops were selling a loaf of bread for $1 100, with few others
retailing it
at $950.
Chikwavira said the price increase was a
“life-and-death” issue, with
most bakeries likely to close down if the
government forced them to reverse
the hike. This would result in thousands of
workers being left unemployed,
he said.
Analysts yesterday said
the bread price increase would hit hardest on
long-suffering Zimbabwean
consumers, who have already been adversely
affected by high prices resulting
from commodity shortages and rampant
inflation.
Shortages of
basic commodities have spawned a thriving black market
where
prices
are out of the reach of many low-income
earners.
Inflation, which reached a record high of 300.1 percent in
the year to
May, has also pushed up the cost of commodities, making them
unaffordable
for many people whose salaries have not kept pace with soaring
inflation.
Consumers, many of who are unlikely to receive
significant cost of
living adjustments this year because of the impact of the
economic crisis on
local companies, are already reeling from last week’s hike
in public
transport fares.
Public transporters increased their
fares by up to 150 percent last
week, pushing them up to between $600 and
$800 a trip in some areas.
By Precious Shumba
Staff Reporter
Daily News
Government to take over building of Tokwe-Mukosi
dam
MASVINGO – The government is to take over construction of the
giant
Tokwe-Mukosi dam in Masvingo, according to President Robert
Mugabe.
Addressing about 10 000 supporters at the dam site, Mugabe
said the
government, which has failed to pay the Italian company contracted
to build
the dam, would now go it alone on the project.
The
government was supposed to pay 75 percent of the costs of the
project in
foreign currency.
Mugabe told supporters: “We are now building the
dam ourselves and it
means we have to work hard. We are still very far from
completing the
project because of financial problems. We just must finish it.
Even if it
means we have to forego our meals, we have to do it.”
The Italian contractor, Salin Impregilo, is however still on the
site.
Although Salin Impregilo spokesman Stephen Mukoti could not
be reached
for comment yesterday, he told The Daily News in an earlier
interview that
the company was still working at the dam site. He said: “We
are at the
moment drilling some tunnels, which means some of our staff are on
the
site.”
Construction of the dam started in 1997 and was
supposed to be
complete by March last year.
Work had to stop on
several occasions because the contractor was not
paid by the government. The
initial cost of the project was pegged at $300
million, but has since
ballooned to over $7 billion.
The Italian company was supposed to
be paid 75 percent of the project
cost in foreign currency while 25 percent
was to be paid in Zimbabwe
dollars.
Early this year, the
government requested the Italian company to
consider changing the earlier
arrangement by accepting all the payments in
Zimbabwean
dollars.
Own Correspondent
Daily News
Travellers stranded as fuel blues
continue
HUNDREDS of long-distance travellers were yesterday
stranded at
Harare’s main bus terminus because of worsening fuel shortages
exacerbated
by a fuel coupon system introduced for public transporters last
week.
Travellers who spoke to The Daily News yesterday, some of
them
attempting to return to their places of employment, said they were
unsure if
they would be able to secure transport.
“I have been
here since 7 am but not a single bus going to Mt Darwin
has come and I am
really worried about whether I will be able to make the
journey or not,” said
Ernest Chakohwa, a schoolteacher in Mt Darwin.
There were
very
few buses at the Mbare terminus, with many people who did not
have
urgent journeys opting to return home.
Another stranded
traveller, Lorraine Gombera, said she had been forced
to go back to her home
in Highfield on Saturday after she failed to find
transport at Mbare
Msika.
“I am told the bus which goes through Howard Mission is
grounded due
to lack of fuel,” said Gombera. “So I was hoping that some
operators would
ply the route but it seems this fuel shortage problem is
dimming our hopes.”
Travellers said unscrupulous commuter omnibus
operators were taking
advantage of the fuel shortages by charging exorbitant
fares to ferry people
to their destinations.
Public transport
operators said the transport crisis was partly the
result of a fuel coupon
system introduced by the government last week in an
attempt to wipe out a
thriving black market for petrol and diesel.
The black market is
the result of a severe fuel crisis that has
crippled the operations of
several local companies and public transporters.
Public
transporters said the new system had contributed to a reduction
in the number
of public vehicles on the roads because the coupons were only
being issued to
operators with certificates of fitness and road permits.
Staff
Reporter
Daily News
DRC doctors refuse to take up residences
SEVERAl of the 77 medical personnel brought from the Democratic
Republic of
the Congo (DRC) to work in Zimbabwe’s public hospitals are
reported to have
refused to move into their allocated residences at Harare’s
Parirenyatwa
Hospital, saying their rooms were smaller than they had
been
promised.
Hospital insiders said the doctors had been given
a single room each,
which was too small to accommodate their
families.
Some of the doctors were seen by the Daily News crew
yesterday
afternoon milling outside Parirenyatwa Hospital’s doctors’
residence with
their luggage, wives and children, demanding that they be
taken to where
they would be staying.
They, however, refused to
talk to the Daily News when approached for
comment.
The
hospital’s clinical director, Sydney Makarawo, who was said to be
the only
person who could comment on the matter on behalf of the hospital,
was said to
be away.
Meanwhile, the strike by junior and middle-levels doctors
at public
hospitals continued yesterday with no solution in sight to resolve
the
impasse between them and their employer, the Public Service
Commission
(PSC).
The doctors went on strike on
Friday, barely two weeks after the Labour Court ordered them back to
work
after they embarked on another industrial action over remuneration.
The strike resumed after the PSC failed to meet its earlier commitment
to
address salary anomalies
resulting from its job
evaluation
exercise.
The exercise was supposed to
address discrepancies in the salaries of
all civil servants who, however, say
it has left them worse off.
Hospital Doctors’ Association president
Phibion Manyanga said the
strike would continue until the government
addressed the salaries issue and
working conditions.
“We expect
the strike to spread to all the district hospitals from
Monday (today) as we
have now communicated with all the doctors to resume
the strike,” Manyanga
said.
Nurses at the capital city’s major referral centres –
Parirenyatwa and
Harare Central hospitals – yesterday said they were turning
away patients
because of the strike.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
Parties resolve to oppose polls under
Constitution
ZIMBABWE’S opposition political parties will oppose
any major
elections proposed under the country’s present Constitution, it was
learnt
yesterday.
The resolution was made at the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA)’
s parties’ convention, held in Masvingo at the
weekend.
Parties that lent their weight to the resolution were the
Movement for
Democratic Change, the National Alliance for Good Governance,
United
Parties, the Democratic Party and the Zimbabwe African People’s
Union.
Democratic Party president Urayayi Zembe, who represents
opposition
parties in the NCA task-force, told The Daily News: “The political
parties
that are members of the NCA are committed to this
consensus.
“They will not accept any general elections or
presidential elections
to be held under the current colonial Lancaster House
Constitution.”
Zembe said the political parties that attended the
NCA meeting would
present the resolution to their members in an attempt to
reach a consensus
on the matter. The situation will then be reviewed in
September.
NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku however said the
opposition political
parties were not calling for a boycott of elections, but
wanted to prevent
elections from taking place under the current
constitution.
The NCA has been lobbying for reform of Zimbabwe’s
1979 Lancaster
House Constitution, which it says has vested President Robert
Mugabe with
too many powers.
Madhuku said the political parties
wanted an independent electoral
commission to take over the administration of
polls in Zimbabwe. The body
would be in charge of voter registration,
announcement of election dates and
the voting process.
These are
functions presently under the control of the country’s
Registrar General’s
Office, which has been accused of being biased towards
the ruling ZANU PF,
charges that it denies.
Meanwhile, the NCA’s Masvingo meeting went
ahead this weekend even
though it had initially been barred by the police,
who have to be informed
of proposed public meetings under the controversial
Public Order and
Security Act.
The police had indicated to the
NCA that the meeting, which began on
Friday, could not go ahead because
Mugabe was supposed to address a rally in
Masvingo province.
NCA
spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said the police had reversed the ban
and allowed
the convention to go ahead.
“We were later allowed to hold our
meeting by the police’s Law and
Order section. They, however, told us that we
should not chant slogans at
the meeting. We were also barred from attacking
the President and his
Office,” he said.
Mwonzora said the police
had also indicated that all speakers must be
vetted and that the meeting must
be confined to the venue.
Some of the speakers at the convention
included former ruling ZANU PF
secretary Edgar Tekere, Madhuku as well as
legislators Job Sikhala and
Nelson Chamisa.
Public meetings
whose organisers did not seek permission from the
police have been forcibly
broken up by the riot police in the past.
Staff
Reporters
Daily News
Wheat shortages set to continue, say
experts
Shortages of wheat are set to continue in Zimbabwe as
preparations
for the 2003-2004 planting season have been described by
agricultural
experts as largely inadequate.
The shortages have
so far affected millers and bakeries with adverse
consequences on food
security and employment.
Low harvests from the 2002-3 crop have
also led to serious bread
shortages and a price hike of the
commodity.
Experts say that only 80 000 metric tonnes of wheat will
be produced
this year, compared to 130 000 mt in 2002.
To
encourage wheat growing the government has increased the producer
price from
$70 000 to $150 000 a tonne.
Farmers, however, say the cost of
inputs are still not matched by the
recently announced prices. This year
shortages of fuel and fertiliser has
meant that fewer fields have been
planted. Those that can afford it have
been forced to turn to the parallel
market.
A spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union said the
Ministry of
Energy had supplied farmers with fuel but the rations were not
enough.
Former managing director of the state-run Grain Marketing
Board (GMB)
and opposition MP, Renson Gasela, said the problems facing wheat
farmers
cannot be seen in isolation.
“We have to look at the
fuel problems, the power shortages and how the
economy is performing in order
to find solutions to the wheat shortages,” he
said.
Hardest hit
was the irrigated crop, which requires electric power to
run the
pumps.
In April, an economist at the
Commercial
Farmers’ Union, Kuda Ndoro, said only a quarter of the
irrigated
wheat crop had been planted due to power shortages.
“At the moment
industry, including the agriculture sector, is
operating at only 30 percent
of capacity because the Zimbabwe Electricity
Supply
Authority is
unable to meet power
demands.
“There is no power for
irrigation on the farms. If nothing is done to
augment supply this will
affect the performance of the winter cereals,”
Ndoro said.
Away
from the fields, bread shortages continue in most of Zimbabwe’s
cities and
towns. Until last month when bakers unilaterally increased the
price of bread
without the consent of the government, bread was found mainly
on the parallel
market at almost twice the government gazetted price.
In May the
government pegged the price of a loaf at $250. This is a
far cry from the
$350 to $600 that is charged on the parallel market.
The Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe has since January 2003 been urging
Zimbabweans to boycott
bread which it says is being overcharged by bakers.
The council
suggested Zimbabweans consider options such as sweet
potatoes. Such a call,
however, would have done little to avert the job
losses facing thousands in
the industry.
Tuckshop owners in Harare’s high-density suburbs, who
rely mostly on
selling bread, said business was poor and many had
contemplated closing
down.
Bezel Gandiwa owns a tuckshop in
Harare’s high-density suburb of
Mbare.
“The supply of bread has
been very erratic. In some cases we have gone
for a week without receiving
any bread at all,” Bezel said.
Wheat is the second most important
cereal crop consumed in Zimbabwe
after maize.
The shortages
forced the GMB in May to import 62 000 mt at a cost of
$15 billion, and has
made a request for foreign currency to the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe to
purchase a further 100 000 mt of wheat from Brazil. To cover
needs, the
import bill could climb to US $55.2 million.
But many small-scale
bakeries have closed shop already, complaining
that they cannot access enough
supplies. Large milling and baking companies
are equally feeling the pinch
with the GMB only supplying a maximum of 6 000
mt per week to Zimbabwe’s
three big milling companies.
Although the government’s latest
economic revival initiative, the
National Economic Revival
Programme has agriculture as its foundation,
farmers say it will not work as
long as fuel and foreign currency shortages
persist.
– IRIN
Daily News
Leader
Zimbabwe being mortgaged to
foreigners
If a man comes up to you in the street and asks you
for your wallet,
do you beg him to take your cellphone too?
Do
you strip off your clothes and shoes and give them to him and then
lie down
on the tarmac and say: “Oh please, here are my house keys, this is
my
address, go and clean out
everything else I own too?”
No I haven’t gone mad, but I begin to think Zimbabwe has, because this
is
exactly what we are allowing our government to do and have been for the
last
three years and four months.
Zimbabwe has so many national assets
that belong to each and every one
of us and yet, day by day, month by month
we are just giving them away.
To Libya, a country most of us know
absolutely nothing about, we have
given farms and hunting
concessions.
Then we gave them service stations and hotels and now
our government
talks of giving them our oil pipeline and Msasa fuel storage
facilities.
To Libya, a country whose leader has been in power for
33 years, and
to whom 57 young Zimbabwean people recently went for some sort
of “training”
, we have sold our souls.
To the jointly owned
Belgian and French Total Fina Elf, we have sold
the Beitbridge storage
facilities and are in the process of selling 51
percent of the shares in
Zimbabwe’s oil blending enterprises.
To China, we have awarded
tenders to work parts of our farming lands –
the very land that the
government tells us
every day belongs only to black
Zimbabweans.
“Our land is our prosperity” is the ZANU PF slogan and
yet they cannot
give it away fast enough.
To a country on the
other side of the planet, we have sold our pride
and dignity.
To
South Africa’s Reserve Bank we have handed over surety and
securities
to
the value of R82.5 million (Z$8.83 billion) in the last few
years.
What are these sureties – mines perhaps or the Hwange coal reserves or
the
Kariba turbines?
To a country whose leader will not say that
the murder, torture and
rape of Zimbabweans are human rights abuses, we have
mortgaged our present
and future.
What about the national jewels
that have been sold that we do not know
about? How did we pay for all the
water cannons and riot gear that came from
Israel?
How did we
pay for the fuel that has come from Kuwait and Angola? What
did we give to
Malaysia and Indonesia in exchange for their kindness to
our
government?
To the ZANU PF elite, the army and political
chefs, we gave all our
farms, our homes, the jobs of half a million workers
and the food on our
tables. We gave them the wildlife conservancies, the game
and the indigenous
trees.
We gave them the dams and boreholes we
had built, the millions of
kilometres of underground water pipes, irrigation
lines and reservoirs.
Then, when we had given them all this, we let
them tell us what a
shambles it was all in.
We let men who had
taken all these precious national and individual
assets conduct an audit and
say: “Oops, sorry Zimbabwe, we’ve taken
everything but we still cannot grow
food for you, put petrol in your cars or
bank notes in the finance
houses.”
To a party that has taken away our freedom of speech,
movement and
association, we have given our self-sufficiency, diversity and
food from our
cupboards.
So who owns Zimbabwe now that our
national treasures and family jewels
have been given away? Is it Libya or
China, Kuwait or Belgium, South Africa
or ZANU PF? It certainly isn’t us, the
ordinary Zimbabweans.
When our government has given, sold or
mortgaged everything in our
country, what will there be left for your
children and mine?
How many decades will it take for us to buy back
the family jewels,
the birthrights that our government have given
away?
The national treasures are almost all gone. Our children, be
they of
ZANU PF or MDC parents, will have nothing to inherit.
Colin Powell was right when he said that soon there would be nothing
left to
ruin in Zimbabwe. The biggest irony of this tragedy is that our
government is
turning us into a foreign-owned colony faster than we can read
their slogans
that
proclaim “Zimbabwe will never be a colony
again!”
By Cathy Buckle
Cathy Buckle writes on
social issues
Daily News
Leader
No time to waste on food
crisis
ELSEWHERE in this newspaper today we carry a
report
indicating that Zimbabwe will not produce enough wheat to
meet
domestic demand because preparations for the 2003-2004 agricultural
season
have been inadequate.
Zimbabwe is expected to produce
only 80 000 metric tonnes of wheat
this year, compared to 130 000 mt in
2002.
This is at a time the country is already said to need 221 000
tonnes
of maize to feed 5 422 634 people between January this year and March
2004.
About one million of those requiring emergency food aid are in urban
areas,
previously left out
of food aid programmes and where
several deaths from
malnutrition have already been
reported.
United Nations agencies say the country needs to import
close to 1.3
million tonnes of food commercially or through food aid provided
by donors
to meet the nation’s minimum food
requirements.
But while the country further braces for the impact
of another year of
food insecurity, international aid agencies have indicated
that they plan to
reduce humanitarian assistance in Zimbabwe because of
expectations of a
slightly bigger harvest this year.
According
to a June report from the UN’s World Food
Programme (WFP) and Food
and Agriculture Organisation,
cereal production for consumption in
Zimbabwe is estimated at 980 000
tonnes in the 2003-2004 season, 41 percent
higher
than the previous agricultural season.
But
international humanitarian organisations point out
that this is
about half less than the 2000-2001 harvest
and is not enough to
meet the country’s consumption requirements.
While all this is
happening, there is little evidence that the
government is at all ruffled by
threats of a serious humanitarian disaster.
Indeed, there is even
confusion about whether Harare, which clearly
does not have the capacity to
tackle the food crisis on
its own, has approached international aid
agencies to ask for an
extension of food aid programmes.
The WFP
last month indicated that the Zimbabwean government had
written to the UN
agency to request it to extend its
humanitarian assistance
programme, although it had yet to make the
country’s food aid requirements
known.
But Lancester Museka, permanent secretary for the Social
Welfare
Ministry, tasked with dealing with Zimbabwe’s food
crisis, indicated in a local weekly newspaper last week that the
government
had yet to make a formal appeal for food aid
because it was “still
waiting for information from experts in the
ministry”.
We can
only hope that this apparent confusion is not an
indication of the
state of affairs within the ministries of Social
Welfare and of Lands and
Agriculture, and that those in charge have sat down
to do the basic planning
needed to prevent a
serious humanitarian crisis in
Zimbabwe.
While we appreciate that the government is battling a
severe foreign
currency crisis, it nevertheless needs to have a plan for
importing the
wheat and maize required to feed food insecure Zimbabweans who
are unable to
fend for themselves in a harsh environment.
The
government needs to come out clearly on Zimbabwe’s food aid
requirements,
information that foreign humanitarian agencies need if they
are to adequately
respond to the Zimbabwe crisis.
It is crucial that farmers are
provided with enough seeds and other
inputs in preparation for the 2004-2005
agricultural season. Failure to do
this will mean that Zimbabweans will be
discussing exactly these same issues
that are of concern now this time next
year.
But next year might not come for many Zimbabweans whose
situation is
already grimly desperate and for who time is rapidly running
out.
More than 100 people are said to have died from malnutrition
already
this year and hundreds more could suffer the same fate if nothing is
done
urgently to alleviate their suffering.
Absolutely no time
can be wasted.