Jim Fisher-Thompson, Washington File Staff Writer, Nov. 6, 2002

Washington -- Impending famine in Zimbabwe, a result of the disastrous farm policies of President Robert Mugabe, is being compounded by his ZANU PF movement's partisan distribution of food donated by the international community, say a U.S. official and three dissident Zimbabweans visiting the United States.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Mark Bellamy said the U.S. Government was "deeply disturbed at reports that food aid was being politicized" by the Mugabe regime. Bellamy made his remarks at a November 1 presentation on "Famine and Political Violence in Matebeleland" sponsored by the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS).

Members of the Matebele tribe on the CSIS panel were: Johnson Mnkandla, a magistrate and former candidate for mayor of Bulawayo, the principal city in Matebeleland; Edward Simela, and Ernest Mtunzi, a trainer of civil servants who now lives in Britain. They said they had come to Washington to raise awareness of an impending human rights catastrophe and famine in their tribal homeland, which has never been a ZANU PF stronghold.

The three charged the Mugabe government and ZANU PF with stifling the rule of law through the arrest and harassment of magistrates, using food relief as a political weapon by distributing only to ZANU PF supporters in Matebeleland and making impartial food distribution by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) almost impossible.

Bellamy said, "Tragedy is perhaps too mild a word to describe the situation" in Zimbabwe. One of the factors compounding the political and economic turmoil there, he explained, "might be called a conspiracy of silence or ignorance or just a lack of attention to the crisis that is unfolding in that country." This means, he explained, "a relative lack of attention in the international media. A relative lack of attention and action by international bodies and certainly a studied lack of attention by Zimbabwe's neighbors.

"So, when we are asked to help," the official said, "I think we can, at least in a modest way, play a role by getting the story out about what is happening in Zimbabwe. And this is something we in the U.S. Government are going to be paying more attention to."

Addressing the overall food and political crisis in the southern African nation, Bellamy said, "Today, we can make a number of safe predictions and one of them is that the situation in Zimbabwe is going to get a lot worse. Six months from now people in Zimbabwe are going to be hungrier, sicker, poorer and the situation is going to be every bit as desperate, or more so, unless there are dramatic changes.

"And, I don't think there is a possibility of dramatic change in Zimbabwe," Bellamy added, "Unless there is an effort from outside Zimbabwe."

To the contrary, the official said, "There will probably be an effort by the Zimbabwe Government now to crack down on NGOs and civil societies to try to shut down links between outside bodies and indigenous Zimbabwean groups that are still struggling to maintain the rule of law, to preserve what's left of Zimbabwe's democratic institutions, to maintain whatever is left of civic decency in that country."

He explained, "We can expect that the activities of those Zimbabwean groups will be criminalized. We can expect they will come under tightened surveillance and suppression. And we need to develop strategies for dealing with that."

Bellamy said, "In many ways it serves Robert Mugabe's purposes to hold his people hostage in the same way Saddam Hussein has held the Iraqi people hostage."

Ernest Mtunzi told the panel "Food is not getting to the ordinary people because they back the opposition [political] party. People are told: 'If you want food you must vote for ZANU.'" He noted that increasingly, "It is said [by Mugabe supporters] that Matebele people, like whites, are foreigners in Zimbabwe."

According to Johnson Mnkandla, "Food…[and] Chiefs have been politicized" in Matebeleland. The former magistrate and politician noted, "The rule of law in Zimbabwe is gone." He added that a new "disturbing development" in the Government's harassment of NGO's distributing relief supplies in Matebeleland was the requirement that "they must obtain import licenses." But such licenses are only granted to groups led by ZANU party members.

The grain that is allowed in from the outside must come through the Government's Grain Marketing Board, which Mnkandla said is manned by ZANU militia, war veterans and tribal chiefs amenable to the Mugabe Administration.

Even when non-ZANU people in Matebeleland are able to get food, other means of harassment are employed, Mnkandla said. "Illegal roadblocks are used to stop people, confiscate their grain, which is then given to ZANU supporters." The result is that there is now "an exodus of people to South Africa" in search of food as well as employment.

The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.