U.S. ambassador frustrated in talks
with Zimbabwe minister
Michael Hartnack
HARARE, Zimbabwe — A senior U.S. diplomat, who was barred
from meeting victims of President Robert Mugabe’s mass eviction
campaign, last week criticized government interference with aid
efforts and warned that there would be outrage in U.S. Congress
over the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Tony Hall, a Rome-based U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food agencies,
announced that the United States would donate $51.8 million worth
of food relief to Zimbabwe and the neighboring drought-stricken
countries of Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland.
The 73,500-ton donation will be sufficient to feed 5 to 6 million
people for one month, he told reporters at Harare airport.
“Despite our differences with the government, the United States
will stand by the people of Zimbabwe because there is no place for
politics when it comes to feeding hungry people,” Hall said
at the end of a three-day visit. But he warned that the donation
“only scratched the surface of an essentially political problem.”
Zimbabwe’s security forces prevented Hall and his entourage
from making a scheduled visit to Hopley Farm, on the capital’s
outskirts, to investigate claims that 700,000 urban poor were left
homeless or without jobs as a result of the eight-week “Operation
Murambatsvina” (drive out filth). Many were evicted into midwinter
cold in May-July.
“I was told in a hushed tone that the government doesn’t
want me to see this place because old people are dying,” Hall
said. He said the official reason given was that the military ran
the site and the delegation needed a special visitors permit from
the information ministry.
Human rights lawyers last week dismissed claims of improved conditions
at Hopley, saying it was “nothing but a new transit camp.”
Hall, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
and the World Food Program, said he was distressed by conditions
in Hatcliff township outside Harare, which he visited early Friday.
“I had several people come up to me and ask me for blankets
and food. They don’t have enough to keep themselves warm ...
their children are hungry. One gentleman spoke of the night he was
evicted — police arrived with no notice, driving him and others
out with dogs. He was forced to sleep outside for a week during
the coldest time of winter.”
Hall said Zimbabwean bureaucracy was keeping 10,000 tons of American
relief organizations’ food aid “bottled up” in
the South African port of Durban, over alleged lack of import licenses,
while another organization had not been given permission to distribute
15,000 tons already here.
An aid convoy from the South African Council of Churches has also
been held up for nearly a week as the Zimbabwe government insists
on certificates to prove that it contains no genetically modified
food.
The WFP predicts that up to 4 million of Zimbabwe’s 12 million
people may suffer from food shortages. Before March elections, Mugabe
predicted a 2.4 million ton maize harvest and told relief organizations
not to choke Zimbabwe with unwanted aid. Officials now say they
have secured 1.8 million tons from neighboring South Africa and
do not need to make any formal appeal for help.
However, Hall said he was “very worried” about the coming
months because “we are going into a period when we don’t
think there is going to be enough food in this country.”
Hall believed a proposed visit to Zimbabwe by U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan “would bring tremendous pressure to bear on this
government.”
Mugabe, 81, and in power since 1980 independence, has said he is
prepared to show Annan progress in rehousing those evicted by Operation
Murambatsvina.
Hall, meanwhile, said he would speak with U.S. government officials.
“Don’t forget I have a lot of friends in the U.S. Congress,”
said Hall, who served for 24 years on Capitol Hill. “And they
are going to be outraged.”
(Associated Press)
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