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Zimbabwe Snatches Control of Food Aid

El_Pato

Old Salt
Say one thing for Bob, he's got class

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/ma...im20.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/20/ixworld.html

Zimbabwe snatches control of food relief
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 20/08/2003)


Zimbabwe's government banned international relief agencies from distributing food aid yesterday and demanded they hand over their stocks immediately.

Aid groups were later holding crisis talks. They say more than three million Zimbabweans need food aid, with the number expected to rise above five million - more than half the population - by the end of the year.

President Robert Mugabe's authorities have been accused of handing out relief according to political allegiance. The government denies the charges.

Local elections are due this month and critics fear that Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party wants to use the food to influence the outcome.

July Moyo, the welfare minister, issued a memorandum yesterday, insisting that food must be distributed in rural areas by bodies approved by the government - including its own agencies.

"No international donor can tell us that the government should not be involved in food distribution when we are the ones who asked for the food in the first place," he was quoted as saying by the privately owned Daily News.

Officials from the World Food Programme, the United Nations agency that has fed five million people over the past year, were discussing the directive with partner organisations and seeking clarity from the government.

"We are trying to get more information," Luis Clemens, a WFP spokesman, said. "The situation is worrying."

Poor rains have hit crops and grazing in Zimbabwe - once the breadbasket of southern Africa - while Mr Mugabe's chaotic land reforms continue to devastate agricultural production.

Most of the food aid being sent to the country is paid for by Britain, the European Union and America. A large consignment of EU-donated grain is due to arrive in the next few weeks.

The directive demands that all non-government organisations surrender their food stocks to the government and no longer select beneficiaries, as they have been doing in a well-organised emergency relief programme over the past year.

When Zimbabwe had grain stocks of its own and provided a minor work-for-food relief programme last year it was found to be withholding assistance to tens of thousands of opposition supporters.

Three months after the latest harvest, the government has no grain to distribute to people on the brink of starvation, including supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF.

The staple maize meal is available in some urban shops, but is too expensive for most people to buy, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Relief groups doubt that the government has the capacity or skill to arrange effective food distribution on the scale required.

"They will feed only their own supporters and we will not stand for this," an NGO source said.

Andrew Nongogo, of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, said: "There are local government elections coming up and this would be one way for the government to let people see it is assisting them. At present, every person getting food aid knows it comes from foreign donors."
 
... and we do nothing

When will the Government act? When the country is famine stricken? When Mugabe has caused the death of millions? Or when they find oil in Zimbabwe?
 
Get real, [When will the Government act?] for the government to act they would have to admit that the past government was incorrect in the past.
Can't have that can we!!!.

Remember in the 60ies. The government then was talking about the UK armed forces invading the then Rhodesia after the declaration of UDI. On the shop floor the R.A.F. were talking about refusing to attack .

[/quote]
 
We will only go in when they have WMD's that can be used as a Global threat within 45 minutes.......

or am i thinking of the wrong country......oh yes that was Iraq... where another mad egomaniacal bastard was in charge...... so much for our ethical foreign policy and commitment to the commonwealth and all its subjects :evil:
 
"42. Elsewhere, although the risks to our specific interests are small, we have longstanding international friendships to maintain and we have an important wider interest in supporting international order and in promoting freedom, democracy and prosperity. Our international stature and position as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council gives us a particular responsibility to contribute. Nor does the British public expect us to turn our back on poverty, inequality and human suffering in poorer countries. We will respond to such problems as necessary drawing on the range of civil, diplomatic, economic and military means at our disposal. "

Evidently Para 42 of SDR does not apply In Africa?
 
Archimedes said:
"42. Elsewhere, although the risks to our specific interests are small, we have longstanding international friendships to maintain and we have an important wider interest in supporting international order and in promoting freedom, democracy and prosperity. Our international stature and position as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council gives us a particular responsibility to contribute. Nor does the British public expect us to turn our back on poverty, inequality and human suffering in poorer countries. We will respond to such problems as necessary drawing on the range of civil, diplomatic, economic and military means at our disposal. "

eh ? sounds like Blairism to me not english
 
That's because it is...

The paragraph means that it is, in effect, government policy to go in and give Uncle Bob a good kicking. I can only assume that the reason that it's dressed up in such Blairite Bollox language is so that nobody can spot that there is something approaching a firm commitment in there.
 
havent we got a spare cruise missle we could lob at him :?: at least some of the inhabitants would welcome us back .and it might keep a few of them from coming over here .not sure who i despise most black or white africans in my view none having any quality to reccomend them
 
Woody,

What kind of racist/nationalist comment is that?


"not sure who i despise most black or white africans in my view none having any quality to reccomend them."

Do you think you would repeat that comment in front of the 1st Battalion Irish Guards?

Piper Christopher Muzvuru (may he rest in peace) was a Zimbabwean who died fighting for ‘YOUR’ country.

When the bullets start hitting the sand in front of you, you don’t fight for Queen, Country, creed or family. It’s for your mates left and right.

During WWII Rhodesia (Zimbababwe now) contributed a higher percentage of its manpower to the war than any other segment of the empire. With over 10% of those volunteers not returning.

Think about all the others from many other African countries who gave their lives that you might live in a free world today.
 
Despite the justifications for intervention (and there are many!), we are likely to be in a lose, lose situation if we were to go it alone and fulfil the role of the interfering Colonial power - albeit that this is how Bob and his media machine is already portraying us!

Regrettably, sub-saharan Africa is suffering from the same blight - post-colonial rulers who have long since run out of steam, forgotten why they came to power and who have lost popular support. With a little more of an iron will and the whipping up of support amongst the democratic do-gooders to add legitamacy to the cause, the greatest good could be achieved by the policing/enforcing of free and fair elections by the International community. We have missed an opportunity twice in Zimbabwe in recent years. Bob cannot take the whole blame, as the rest of the world has stood by and let him get away with it.

Hmm...perhaps it is time to act.

Wild Geese anyone?
 
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