Zimbabwe cuts access to aid

JOHANNESBURG: Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans – orphans and old people, the sick and the down-and-out – have lost access to food and other basic humanitarian assistance as the government there has clamped down on international aid groups it claims are backing the political opposition, relief agencies say.

In recent days, CARE, one of the largest nonprofit groups working in the country, has been ordered by the Zimbabwean government to suspend all its operations, which helps 500,000 of the country's most vulnerable people. This month alone, CARE would have fed more than 110,000 people in schools, orphanages, old age homes and other programs, it said.

But the aid restrictions go far beyond any one group. Muktar Farah, deputy head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Zimbabwe, said Tuesday that millions of people have lost assistance due to what he called "the shrinking of humanitarian space."

"NGOs have been told to scale down or stop operations throughout the country," he said.

Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, speaking on Tuesday at a United Nations food conference in Rome, accused nongovernmental organizations of interfering in politics and contended that the West had conspired "to cripple Zimbabwe's economy" and bring about "illegal regime change."

"Funds are being channeled through nongovernmental organizations to opposition political parties, which are a creation of the West," Mugabe said. "These Western-funded NGOs also use food as a political weapon with which to campaign against government, especially in the rural areas."

On Friday and Monday, representatives of aid groups were summoned by administrators in four districts and instructed to cease all work in the field until a bitterly contested presidential runoff is held on June 27 between Mugabe, in power for 28 years, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Aid groups expect such summons to come from a growing list of districts.

In a summary of one such meeting, compiled by an aid group and provided to The New York Times, representatives from Mugabe's office, the police and the army warned the groups not to say anything public about their withdrawal and not to conduct any operations at night.

Aid workers and human rights groups say the restrictions are meant to prevent them from witnessing attacks on opposition activists and supporters, often during nighttime raids, amid the government's increasingly violent and deadly crackdown on those it sees as a threat to its hold on power.

The United Nations Children's Fund said Monday that 10,000 children have been displaced by the violence, scores beaten and some schools turned into centers of torture. And it expressed worry about the welfare of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable and orphaned children given how many NGOs have restricted their operations "due to threats, requests to do so by authorities or general 'concern at current uncertainties.'"

Zimbabwean political analysts and civic leaders say that Mugabe and ZANU-PF, his governing party, are themselves seeking to use food as a political weapon in a country, once the region's bread basket, where hunger now afflicts millions. The government recently bought 600,000 tons of maize. By barring NGOs from giving out food in some areas, the governing party controls food distribution to reward supporters and punish opponents.

"They've always been willing to forgo the needs of the people in their political interests," said Fambai Ngirande, a spokesman for Zimbabwe's National Association of Non-governmental Organizations, which has over 1,000 NGO members in Zimbabwe.

Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, noted that while the opposition defeated large numbers of ZANU-PF politicians in the March 29 election, the government has not allowed the newly elected to take office until after the presidential runoff. It is through these local politicians, he said, that the party determines who is eligible for food aid and assistance from among the multitudes who are too poor to afford medicines and school fees for their children, among other things.

As Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed, unemployment has risen to more than 80 percent and hyperinflation has made food ever more costly, Zimbabweans have engaged in an ever more desperate struggle just to survive.

"Zimbabwe is a huge patronage system and ZANU-PF drives that system," Masunungure said. "Food distribution is not only a matter of life and death to recipients, but it's a strategic political resource that the government deploys to promote its political agenda."

In CARE's case, cabinet ministers have accused its staff of distributing election pamphlets and encouraging people to vote for the opposition and against ZANU-PF. CARE vehemently denies the charges and says the government has not yet offered any specific evidence to back up the allegations.

Complete coverage:
Cannes Film Festival 2008

Also in Culture:

• With affection, Cannes calls the big names home
• Sean Penn: an unorthodox president of Cannes jury
• Vincent Cassel as France's 'Public Enemy Number One'

Search

Subscriptions
Sign Up  |  Manage