Zim may force end to food aid
2003-08-22 13:51
Harare - United Nations officials threatened to stop delivering food relief to the hungry in Zimbabwe if the government go ahead with plans to control the distribution, said the UN food agency on Friday.
A government directive issued earlier this week ordered international donors to hand food aid over to ruling party-dominated rural committees and local leaders in famine-hit districts.
This has raised fears the government will use the food as a political weapon.
The government has denied previous accusations by relief organisations and the opposition that they use food aid to peddle political influence.
The government's directive came ahead of next week's rural council and provincial elections.
The UN World Food Programme said to its partner charities carrying out emergency feeding operations that it was seeking an agreement from the government to carry on food distribution without interference.
Without such an agreement, "distribution itself should be postponed until we have received appropriate clarification," said the WFP statement.
Number of starving could double
The WFP estimates about 3.3 million Zimbabweans are in urgent need of food aid.
By January, ahead of the next harvests, that number is expected to rise to about 5.5 million, nearly half the population.
Mass starvation in Zimbabwe - once considered the bread basket of the region - was averted last year only by international aid and food imports.
Zero tolerance policy on political interference
Luis Clemens, a spokesperson for the WFP, said since the government's new directive was issued it appeared not to have been implemented and feeding was continuing unhindered.
"We still have not had any incidents of political interference. If we have a problem, we will stop," he said.
The WFP insisted on "a zero-tolerance policy on political interference in donor-provided food aid," Clemens said.
Rural areas are the traditional stronghold of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party, but its support has waned as the country faces its second year of famine and the worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.
Last month, Zimbabwe launched a belated emergency food appeal, asking foreign donors to provide about one-third of the country's food needs.
Western donors are still drawing up their emergency humanitarian aid packages for Zimbabwe. The European Union has so far donated $30m toward the new appeal.
Has acute shortages
Long-term development aid has mostly come to a halt in protest against political violence and abuses of human and democratic rights in the past three years.
Erratic rains and violent, state-supported seizures of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black settlers have wrecked the agriculture-based economy.
Zimbabwe has acute shortages of basic foods, fuel, hard currency and local cash.
The WFP has appealed to donors for $308m to feed 6.5 million people in southern Africa in the next 12 months, at least two-thirds of them in Zimbabwe.
- AP