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US food aid 'political gimmick'
19/07/2007 12:18 - (SA)
Harare - The Zimbabwean government on Thursday dismissed as a political gimmick a pledge of thousands of tons of emergency food aid from the United States.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for US President George W Bush announced that Washington would be sending more than 47 000 tons of food aid to Zimbabwe, which was facing a massive shortfall of the staple maize.
The spokesperson also criticised the government of President Robert Mugabe for what he termed its reckless economic policies.
But on Thursday, Zimbabwe's information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said Harare would accept the donation as reparations for the damage the Bush administration had done to the people of Zimbabwe.
Land reform programme
Ndlovu was quoted as saying: "That they are giving us food to last until the next harvest is just a gimmick to support the opposition as far as we are concerned. This is a measure to soothe themselves of their guilt."
He repeated Mugabe's accusation against most Western powers: that Washington was trying to turn the people of Zimbabwe against the government.
After the launch of a controversial land reform programme in 2000 Zimbabwe's maize harvests had plummeted, as had lucrative foreign currency-earning exports like tobacco, beef and flowers.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that more than a third of Zimbabwe's 12 million people would require emergency food aid by next March.
The agency said in June that more than two million Zimbabweans would be facing serious hunger as of this month.
Sapa-dpa
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