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Human Rights Watch accuses Zimbabwe government of using food as weapon
Terry Leonard, Associated Press
October 23, 2003

Zimbabwe's government is using food as a weapon, denying it to political opponents as nearly half its people face starvation, according to Human Rights Watch.

The group said the government and ruling party punish opponents by manipulating the supply and distribution of subsidized food, as well as the registration of people eligible for international relief.

In a 51-page report released Thursday, the New York-based group said corruption and profiteering are rampant at the government's Grain Marketing Board, which oversees distribution of most staple food. It said officials divert large quantities of grain at tremendous profit to the black market and neighbouring countries.

"Select groups of people are being denied access to food," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the group's African division said in a statement. "This is a human rights violation as serious as arbitrary imprisonment or torture."

Human Rights Watch said food is used as a weapon against members of the main opposition party and people presumed to support it, teachers, former commercial farmworkers and those living in urban opposition strongholds.

"That's a lie," George Charamba, the spokesman for President Robert Mugabe, said in a telephone interview. "It sounds like a very familiar lie to which we are too busy to respond."
The report also criticized international donors for preventing international food aid from going to black farmers who received land confiscated without compensation from white farmers under Zimbabwe's controversial land reform program.

However, Richard Lee, regional spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program, said he was unaware of any such conditions imposed by donors.

Human Rights Watch, aid workers and political analysts in Zimbabwe said people without ruling party membership cards are routinely denied access to government-subsidized food and often prevented from registering to receive international relief.

"No party card, no food," said John Makumbe, a political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe.
Increasing numbers of people seen as opponents must turn to the black market, where Makumbe said a day's supply of food for one person can cost more than a household makes in a day.

Zimbabwe until recently was a grain exporting nation. The United Nations now estimates more than 5.5 million Zimbabweans will need emergency food aid before the next harvest.
Human Rights Watch and others say a collapse in agricultural production prompted by the government's often violent land seizures has contributed greatly to the shortage.

The government and state-controlled press have reported 40 deaths from malnutrition in the second city, Bulawayo. No figures are available for the rest of the country.

"We expect the situation is much worse in other areas, particularly in Matebeleland north and south," said Makumbe, who also advises the Famine Early Warning System monitoring food supplies in the region.
Human Rights Watch said the government compounded food shortages and consolidated its control by preventing private merchants, the opposition party and all but a handful of aid groups from importing grain.

More than 220,000 tons of grain imported by the government have simply vanished, according to diplomats in Zimbabwe.

Human Rights Watch said it appears grain bought by the government abroad was diverted to foreign markets and the local black market, where reports indicate ruling party politicians and favored businessmen can make a 220 percent profit.

The group said the grain board is run by former police, military and intelligence officials who report directly to Mugabe's Cabinet in what Makumbe and other analysts called the militarization of key government industries and ministries.

The government blames food shortages on prolonged drought and donor withdrawal.
However, Lee, the WFP spokesman, said drought has eased in the region, and donors have not withdrawn humanitarian aid.

Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler, committed a further $8.5 million Thursday to emergency food aid after receiving assurances that politics would not interfere with the handouts.
Human Rights Watch said the government often uses war veterans and ruling party militants, groups blamed for the widespread violence and intimidation, to distribute food.
International relief organizations such as WFP have strongly resisted government attempts to take over food distribution, Human Rights Watch said.

Relief groups have briefly suspended operations in some areas because of government interference and threatened to pull out entirely if the government persists in trying to politicize food aid.
However, the government still punishes opponents by manipulating the list of people eligible for international aid, said Human Rights Watch.

Makumbe said party officials and traditional leaders are instructed to exclude opponents from the lists.
Lee acknowledged there had been interference, some of it serious, but said the vast majority of incidents were minor.

Charamba, Mugabe's spokesman, called Human Rights Watch a tool of the British government and dismissed the report as an attempt to support the hardline anti-Mugabe position of Australia, Britain and Canada. "We don't even dignify it by denying it," he said.

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