WFP and Zimbabwe agree major food aid response by IRIN News / BBC News 9:55am 3rd Nov, 2005   01 Dec 2005    WFP and Zimbabwe agree major food aid response. (UN World Food Programme - WFP)    Harare, 01 December 2005 - WFP welcomes the conclusion of an agreement with the Government of Zimbabwe on the delivery and distribution of food aid to millions of people in the country.    The Memorandum of Understanding, (MoU), which was signed after several weeks of discussions with the Government of Zimbabwe, sets out the framework under which food aid distributions take place, including clarifying Government and WFP responsibilities.    "WFP welcomes the signing of this agreement, which will certainly assist in meeting our plans to deliver food aid to hungry people across Zimbabwe," said Kevin Farrell, WFP Country Director for Zimbabwe.    "This MOU sets out the modalities for food aid deliveries and we are encouraged by the commitment to ensure procedures are formalised and followed," Farrell added.    With generous support from a range of donors, WFP and its partner non-government organisations (NGOs) provided food aid to two million people in November, and is gearing up to feed more than three million Zimbabweans through vulnerable group feeding programmes.    This is in addition to ongoing food support for school children, orphans and people living with HIV/AIDS.    The MoU runs through to the end of June next year, at which point the food security of the most vulnerable will have to be reassessed.    In signing the MOU today, Nicholas Goche, Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, expressed appreciation for WFP"s efforts, which benefit vulnerable people in Zimbabwe.    The UN food agency’s response follows a poor harvest in 2005 and a household food survey that was conducted in May by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC), which included Government, WFP and other UN agencies, and several NGOs.    VAC assessments conducted in June indicated that at least three million people would be food insecure during Zimbabwe"s lean season (Jan-April) although Government has recently acknowledged that given the very large price increases of food since then, the number of people in need of food assistance will now be higher.    WFP has appealed to the international community for assistance to import 300,000 tonnes of food to feed people who are considered most at risk of going hungry.    Food aid through WFP is distributed directly to vulnerable people free of charge and complements Government"s efforts to import and make available food through the parastatal Grain Marketing Board at subsidised rates. WFP is particularly concerned about the limited availability of maize at the village level as well as the fact that an increasing number of people cannot afford it.    Incomes for all professions have declined in real terms due to spiralling inflation, which according to the International Monetary Fund is about 400 percent. Prices for maize grain in October showed an increase across the country of between 500 and 700 percent in comparison to a year earlier.    Compounding this scenario is a decline in the ownership of saleable assets as many people are experiencing their fourth consecutive year of food shortages and are now surviving on one meal or less per day.    Johannesburg, 1 Nov 2005 (IRIN)    Annan "concerned" with Zimbabwe government refusal of aid.    An estimated 700,000 people were left homeless or without a livelihood after the "clean-up" campaign    Although victims of Zimbabwe"s recent urban clean-up campaign remain in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, the government has rejected offers of help from the United Nations (UN).    UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan”s spokesman said in a statement that Annan was "deeply concerned by the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe" and disturbed by the continued suffering.    A UN report estimated that Operation Murambatsvina - which the government said was aimed at clearing slums and flushing out criminals - had left more than 700,000 people homeless or without a livelihood after kicking off in mid-May.    Annan made a "strong appeal to the government of Zimbabwe to ensure that those who are out in the open, without shelter and without means of sustaining their livelihoods, are provided with humanitarian assistance in collaboration with the United Nations" and other aid agencies.    Months after the eviction campaign the UN continued to receive reports that tens of thousands of people were still homeless and in need of assistance.    "He is particularly dismayed to learn that the government of Zimbabwe”s ad-hoc inter-ministerial cabinet committee has rejected offers of UN assistance," Annan”s spokesman noted.    Zimbabwe"s Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development stated in an official letter to the UN that there "is no longer a compelling need to provide temporary shelter [to people left homeless by the clean-up campaign] as there is no humanitarian crisis".    The minister also claimed that the government"s interventions had addressed the most urgent shelter needs.    However, the secretary-general”s spokesman commented, "The above statements directly contradict the report by the Secretary-General”s Special Envoy on Human Settlements Issues in Zimbabwe, Ms Anna Tibaijuka, as well as most recent reports from the United Nations and the humanitarian community. A large number of vulnerable groups, including the recent evictees as well as other vulnerable populations, remain in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, including shelter. Furthermore, there is no clear evidence that subsequent government efforts have significantly benefited these groups."    The spokesman noted that the government had taken the decision to decline assistance despite extensive consultations on relief efforts in the past few months between the UN and Harare. "Meanwhile, the impending rainy season threatens to worsen the living conditions of the affected population."    An aid worker in Harare told IRIN there was no indication that the government”s attempt to ease the suffering of those affected by the clean-up had worked. Houses being built under the government"s "Garikai" (Live Well) programme were being occupied by civil servants, police and soldiers, "while those affected by the clean-up are being sent to rural areas".    The humanitarian community had been "waiting for that letter from the minister", hoping it would give them the go-ahead to provide assistance, but the offer was turned away.    Nov 1. 2005    Zimbabwe in Crisis. (BBC News)    The Zimbabwean economy is in freefall and inflation has soared to an annual rate of 360%. More than 75% of the population live below the poverty line and there are shortages of basic foods, such as sugar, maize meal, oil and margarine.    Church leaders in Zimbabwe have accused President Mugabe of deliberately starving his people. They say the regime has forced thousands from their homes into camps, in the drought-ravaged countryside, where there is very little food or medicine.    When there"s nothing, tempers flare over the simplest things - a can of petrol. Zimbabwe, short of every basic now, is in ruins. A man being arrested here is a street trader. President Mugabe is picking off the last of the poor he"s been ousting from the cities. He"s called it a "clean-up", but there"s been brutality against those who have resisted, and devastating consequences. One 2-year-old stepped on the embers of his house after it had been razed to the ground. Five months later, he still can"t walk. This year, Mugabe has destroyed the homes of an estimated 700,000 people. Many have been moved on by police time and again. And now, unseen by the world, thousands have been quietly dumped across desolate rural areas, where there is a drought.    WOMAN (TRANSLATION): There is famine, my children have no food - and what I manage to gather for them, the police come and take.    Already some children here are showing signs of serious malnutrition. A 7-year-old"s skin is peeling. She is in the pain of creeping starvation. Her 3-year-old brother"s body is bloated with hunger. He can"t keep down food. The family has been living on one meal of porridge a day since May. In a remote village, Tandiwe"s family reached the absolute edge. For three days her children had had no food at all. While she was out, they ate roots from the ground.    TANDIWE (TRANSLATION): I came back and found my daughter ill. I watched her as she died. A few minutes later, my son passed away too. They would be alive now if they hadn"t been hungry.    Others sell tree bark to buy food. It barely helps with wildly escalating food prices. Church leaders warn thousands could starve and blame the whole crisis on Mugabe.    PIUS NCUBE, ARCHBISHOP OF BULAWAYO: President Mugabe is deliberately starving his people. Break the people of Zimbabwe until they completely agree that Mugabe is the only master and the only god of Zimbabwe.    Mugabe blames the hunger on the drought. But government food came to Tandiwe"s village recently and she said it was only given to his supporters. In her mind, her children might still be living.    (This TV story was smuggled out of Zimbabwe because the BBC, like many other news organisations, is banned from operating in the country).    22 August 2005    “Dumped in Zimbabwe"s poor villages”, by Justin Pearce. (BBC News)    (Justin Pearce reports that the government” policy of moving city dwellers to rural areas is worsening the effects of food shortages).    For Thomas and his wife, Charity, it was not a happy homecoming. In fact, it was not really a homecoming at all. The Zimbabwean government had decided that the young couple belonged in a village deep in the dry bush of Matabeleland North province, in western Zimbabwe.    Thomas was born there, but had not lived there since childhood. His ageing grandmother is his only relative still living in the village. "They were not pleased to receive us since we came empty-handed," Thomas said. "They are in a difficult situation with drought. It was a difficult moment for them."    The United Nations estimates that up to four million Zimbabweans will need food aid over the coming year - mostly in rural areas.    Thomas, 23, and Charity, 21, had made a living as informal traders in a squatter camp in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe"s second largest city, some 200 km away. That came to an end in July, when the government"s Operation Murambatsvina [Drive Out Rubbish] reached the place where they were living.    "We were harassed by police who destroyed our shack - that"s why we had to come to this place," Thomas said. "The police said there was too much filth in this city."    The story he tells is typical of the unknown numbers of Zimbabwean city dwellers who have been dumped in country districts where they have few useful survival skills.    Zimbabwean humanitarian staff say that after destroying homes in the cities and moving people into transit camps, the government assigned people to rural areas on the basis of their identity numbers.    On the identity cards carried by all Zimbabwean citizens, the first few digits form a code for the bearer”s home area. This, however, reflects one"s ancestral home rather than one"s own birthplace.    "Some don"t want to go home because they have nothing there," says a Zimbabwean who is involved in church-based relief efforts. "Some may be the second or third generation to be born in the cities. There are some Zimbabweans who don"t have a rural area."    The relocations are part of a strategy to reassert control over urban people who have voted overwhelmingly for the opposition in recent elections. "They want total political control - they want to peasantify people like [former Cambodian leader] Pol Pot - force them into they country so they can control them," says the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube. "In the countryside they have no newspaper or radio except Zanu-PF propaganda, and they are controlled by the chiefs, who support the government."    Thomas and Charity were forced onto a truck which took them out of Bulawayo, then a local bus, and ended up walking for several hours through the bush. They say they received no food during the journey. Charity says she did not even have a chance to say goodbye to her own family: "Since I came here they don"t know I"m here. I want to go and tell them where I am."    The relocations from cities to villages have affected many thousands throughout Zimbabwe. At just one church in Harare, charity workers have compiled a list of 700 people who have lost their homes and are looking for food and blankets.    Madeleine, 29, was born in Harare but is being sent to the district of Murewa, her husband"s birthplace, about 70km from the city. "We are going because we have nowhere to live, no way to survive here," she says.    Asked whether her husband has land to farm there, she shakes her head. "Sometimes we were helping my husband"s family by sending money," Madeleine says. "My in-laws are having a problem with drought - there"s been no rain this year."    With their livelihood as informal traders destroyed, Madeleine, her husband and their three young children will now be a burden on the rural community to which they used to provide financial support.    (All names in this piece were changed to protect interviewees).    11 Jul 2005 (IRIN)    Church leaders disturbed by suffering of homeless    Thousands of homes were destroyed during the government"s crackdown on informal settlements in urban areas    A delegation from the South African Council of Churches (SACC), visiting Zimbabwe to assess the impact of the ongoing urban cleanup campaign, are " deeply disturbed" by what they have witnessed.    Thousands of informal settlements and markets have been demolished in the cleanup campaign, launched in May, and at least 375,000 people left homeless; the authorities have claimed it was part of an urban renewal strategy that will eventually build 10,000 homes at a cost of US $300 million.    The government wants people evicted from illegal settlements to either move directly to their place of birth in rural areas, or to one of two temporary transit centres outside the capital, Harare, and the eastern city of Mutare. A third facility was to be completed in Bulawayo in the south of the country.    Spokesman Eddie Makue said the SACC delegation, together with the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), had toured the Caledonia transit camp outside Harare, which was set up to temporarily shelter those rendered homeless by the cleanup campaign, and met with civil society and church leaders in Zimbabwe.    The delegation, led by Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ngundane and SACC president Professor Russell Botman, was also scheduled to tour Mbare township, which was severely affected by the cleanup.    The group aimed to meet with both the ruling party and the opposition before returning to Johannesburg.    "We will make a statement tomorrow, as it"s going to be important for us to share our observations, after the delegation briefs the SACC central committee," Makue said. The AACC representative in the delegation is also to report back to the pan-African body"s central committee.    He noted that "what we are observing [in Zimbabwe] is very close to the statement released by the World Council of Churches".    In its statement on 24 June, the World Council of Churches condemned the mass forced evictions taking place in Zimbabwe and called on the government to end the "rapid, ruthless and arbitrary manner" in which the cleanup operation was being conducted.    The council observed that the campaign was being prosecuted during winter, and at "a time when the rural areas are particularly unable to absorb those expelled from the urban areas because of the effects of drought".    Makue added that "for now ... what we can say is that the church leadership is very disturbed by what we have seen: the suffering of the people in the Caledonia camp is quite profound".    The SACC was discussing with local clergy what assistance it could provide to those in need. "[But] we recognise our own limitations as well, and we are very appreciative of the fact that the main caregivers in the Caledonia camp are UNICEF and Christian Care, the service arm of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches."    Meanwhile, rights group Amnesty International has urged the "African Union (AU) to challenge attempts by the government of Zimbabwe to frustrate the AU"s investigation of the current human rights crisis in Zimbabwe".    This followed reports that the AU envoy sent to Zimbabwe to evaluate the impact of the controversial demolition of informal settlements and shops had left the country last week without completing his mission.    AU spokesman Adam Thiam confirmed to IRIN that Bahame Tom Nyanduga, a member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples" Rights, Special Rapporteur Responsible for Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, had left Zimbabwe last Thursday.    Amnesty said the government of Zimbabwe had reportedly claimed there were "procedural irregularities" regarding Nyanduga"s visit.    "By trying to block the work of an African Union representative through the use of blatantly obstructionist procedural excuses, the government of Zimbabwe is showing its real fear: that African Union criticism will force other African governments to finally tackle the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe publicly and effectively," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of Amnesty International"s Africa Programme.    "It is deplorable that the government of Zimbabwe has treated the African Union and a respected member of its Commission in this way," Olaniyan commented. "We urge African Union member states to uphold the African Union"s credibility and integrity, and reaffirm their commitment to human rights and accountability by refusing to allow governments to deflect attention from human rights violations by resorting to the flimsy excuse of "procedural irregularities".
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