Vote for us or starve!
Our recent images showing the empty shelves in Zimbabwe’s mainstream supermarkets and the absurd prices being charged, will surely show the world that Zimbabweans are struggling for food. Every day is now a day spent foraging for food supplies.
Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF regime has a track record of using food as a political weapon, and a recent article in ZimOnline points to the same old election skullduggery starting up all over again:
“Members of the army and the CIO (Central Intelligence Organiation) began arriving at GMB [Grain Marketing Board] depots this week. They ordered GMB staff not to allow enemies of the government (MDC supporters) to access food,” said an official with the state grain utility who spoke on condition he was not named.
Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo, under whose portfolio the GMB falls, confirmed the deployment of state security agents at the grain firm’s depots but said they were there to protect food stocks. Gumbo flatly denied soldiers and secret police were preventing MDC supporters from getting food.
“As you know that our food reserves are depleted, we need some form of security and this week we have increased the number of (security) officers supervising the distribution of food,” said Gumbo, adding that anyone denied food because of political affiliation could approach his office for help.
But some residents from the southern Masvingo city, a stronghold of the MDC, told ZimOnline that soldiers turned them away from a GMB depot in the town.
“I was told to go and get my food from the MDC when I wanted to buy maize at the GMB,” said Nesbit Mudzinganyama of Mucheke suburb in the city.
Another resident, Gabriel Nyaku, said he went to the GMB to get maize-meal to feed mourners at a funeral but he was told that he did not qualify to receive food from the government company.
“I even carried along a burial order to prove that the food I wanted was for mourners but they (soldiers) said I should go and get food from my party because I am a known MDC supporter,” he said.
Controlling food for political gain is one of the cruelest tactics employed by the desperate Mugabe regime. Some have wondered - including me - whether the recent price control nonsense was about deliberately emptying the shops in order to gain full control.
So I am very interested to see this from the Swedish Cooperative Centre:
Now, the international development cooperation organization Kooperation Utan Gränser / Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC) demands the creation of a food observer force. In the same way as the international community supervises elections in other parts of the world, an independent international control of the food aid is demanded to assume that it reaches those who most need it.
The Swedish Cooperative Centre presents today the report “Be loyal - or starve!”
The report is, among other things, based on the organization’s own interviews among some forty families from rural areas in Zimbabwe. All interviewed persons affirm that they lack enough food to survive until the next crop.
The question is: will the SADC leaders support the call?
October 2nd, 2007 17:43
An article in today’s Guardian (UK) reports on the collapse of wheat production in Zimbabwe, with the government trying to accuse farmers:
The agriculture minister, Rugare Gumbo, blamed the food shortages on black farmers who have taken over formerly white-owned land.
“I am painfully aware of the widespread theft of stock, farm produce, irrigation equipment and the general vandalism of infrastructure by our new farmers,” he said.
“I am disappointed that our new farmers have proved to be failures since the start of the land reform programme in 2000. In spite of all the support government has been pouring into the agricultural sector, productivity and under-utilisation of land remain issues of concern.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,,2181592,00.html
Stay strong. No one believes their lies anymore.