http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001294594,00.html
SATURDAY AUGUST 25 2001
Zimbabwe only three months from famine
BY RICHARD BEESTON, DIPLOMATIC EDITOR
FOR the first time in its 20-year history Zimbabwe faces the threat of
famine unless emergency food aid can be distributed to the country’s poor in
the coming months.
According to a confidential Whitehall report prepared this month and seen by
The Times, the production of maize, the staple diet for the black
population, is down nearly a third on last year and shortages could become
acute by November.
“They have basically got three months left,” a British official said. “They
will need outside help or face food shortages,” the official added.
The World Food Programme now lists Zimbabwe, once one of the continent’s
most productive nations, among its list of countries facing “exceptional
food emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa”. Maize production this year is
1.47million tonnes, 28 per cent lower than last year and leaving a shortfall
of half a million tonnes. Slumps in food production are not unusual in
southern Africa, which is prone to droughts. This is, however, the first
time that Zimbabwe will be unable to feed its population for entirely
political reasons. Because of a related economic crisis it no longer has the
foreign currency necessary to import food. What food is available is likely
to be priced beyond many of the country’s needy.
Large parts of the farming sector have been brought to a standstill since
last year’s policy of President Mugabe to allow so-called war veterans to
seize land belonging to white farmers and people linked to the opposition.
To compound the problem, there are fears that foreign countries may be
unable to assist starving Zimbabweans because hardliners in the regime in
Harare do not want to admit that there is a problem. British officials say
that Mr Mugabe will not want to admit that he needs outside help to feed his
people as he prepares for a tough re-election battle next spring.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which has attempted to
mediate in the 18-month land battle, has drawn up an emergency relief plan,
but is unable act until it is asked by the Government. “There is a plan
ready to help Zimbabwe, but the Government has so far shown no urgency in
responding to the crisis,” Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said.
While the world’s attention had been focused largely on the plight of white
farmers, tens of thousands of black Zimbabweans were struggling to survive,
he said.
Those most at risk are former black farmworkers who have been driven out of
their jobs by land seizures as well as the urban poor, many of whom have
lost jobs during the country’s economic troubles. The Foreign Office is
hoping that, even at this late stage, pressure can be brought to bear on Mr
Mugabe to halt the land seizures, restore law and order and reopen dialogue
with outside countries.
Nigeria and South Africa are pressing Mr Mugabe to back down and will
mediate between Britain and Zimbabwe at a foreign ministers’ meeting in
Abuja, the Nigerian capital, next month. Britain is under no illusions. It
has withdrawn a standing offer to provide £36million to help to fund a
peaceful land redistribution programme.
The Times.url
