Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Negotiating while the nation faces starvation
The Standard (Zimbabwe)
August 16, 2008

http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com/opinion/18696-negotiating-while-the-nation-faces-starvation.html

Zimbabweans are starving while the government drags on with negotiations designed to end the country's decade-long political crisis.

It is also apparently in no hurry to lift the ban on distribution of humanitarian aid to vulnerable groups.

The hardest hit are families and communities affected by HIV/Aids, who because of acute food shortages particularly in the rural areas and the high food prices, are unable to feed their families properly.

Just before the March 29 harmonized elections President Robert Mugabe reported that maize had been imported from Malawi and Zambia and when it appeared there were delays, graduates from the national youth service programme were despatched to go and expedite shipment of the grain.

However, from Matabeleland in the West to Manicaland in the East, a common pattern is emerging. It is one of starvation. There is not a single person working in government without relatives in the rural areas facing shortages of food. This has led to unnecessary deaths, especially among people who fall sick.

The government is fully aware of this and it is precisely because of this that a scheme to put basic food stuffs within reach of the majority poor has been launched. The tragedy is that the scheme is episodic.

In coming to the negotiating table, the political leaders claim they are doing this for the good of the country, oblivious to the fact that the people on whose behalf they are negotiating face death from starvation.

On June 4 the government banned non-governmental organizations from conducting humanitarian aid work, which critically included provision of both food and medical supplies to millions of Zimbabweans.

While the government has sought to backtrack from this position, it has significantly failed to lift the ban so that assistance to those desperately in need can resume. So we have humanitarian work stopped on the one hand, and on the other food stocks which NGOs had ordered or received expiring.

It is inconceivable that those sitting in government cannot see that they are threatening genocide by neglect. One senior government minister, Didymus Mutasa, once said he would be happy if Zimbabwe was only left with supporters of Zanu PF. The spectre of starvation is threatening to fulfil Mutasa's wish.

What is also tragic is that even faith-based groups, who are witnessing this starvation, are scared to speak out, because they fear doing so would upset the government. So the lives of citizens at risk of starvation play second fiddle to political expediency.

The international community and the UN Secretary-General have called the government's attention to a growing humanitarian crisis in the country.

In this insensitive and tardy response to a threat to its population, the government shares an odious position with the military junta in Burma that was preoccupied more with its own survival than the wellbeing of its own people devastated by the worst floods in history.

The government must demonstrate its concern for its people and allow humanitarian organisations to restart their invaluable work. After all, if the government was properly executing its responsibility to its citizens there would be no need for NGOs.

It is difficult not to conclude that the government is indifferent to the starvation because the majority of those affected are internally displaced people, supporters of the MDC formations who were largely victims of state terrorism.

The government has abrogated its responsibility. It should allow for resumption of aid work. The next months are critical. That is when most households run out of food.

If the government fails its people, the international community should bring this neglect before the world body. It should not wait until there are corpses to prove the government does not care.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP