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	Zimbabwe in Crisis by UN News / BBC News   December 2005   UN emergency coordinator says Zimbabwe’s humanitarian situation is worsening.   United Nations Emergency Coordinator Jan Egeland, just back from a four-day mission to Zimbabwe on behalf of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said today that the humanitarian situation in the southern Africa is “extremely serious and it is worsening as we speak.”   Speaking to journalists at UN headquarters in New York, Under-Secretary-General Egeland said he met a range of officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and had two meetings with President Robert Mugabe on the UN’s work in the country.   He voiced hope that the UN and donor countries could contribute to breaking the vicious circle which had locked the Zimbabwean people into declining standards of living. The country that had enjoyed a life expectancy of more than 60 years about 16 years ago now has seen that cut to only 32 years today, he said.   Mr. Egeland said it was “heartbreaking” to meet with AIDS orphans, who number about a million in Zimbabwe.“It’s heartbreaking to meet with people who are fearing the future because of food insecurity, which is affecting the majority of the people. Prices are spiralling as food is becoming increasingly scarce. It was heartbreaking to meet victims of the eviction campaign last summer, who now are back in the same place, only in much worse shelter than the house that was bulldozed.”   The UN wants to do more to help, he said, noting that it launched an appeal last week for $276 million for food aid, medical assistance, safe water and sanitation, as well as general assistance for Zimbabwe’s people.   In that regard, he made progress in talks with the Government in some crucial areas. Officials agreed to cut some of the red tape, which was an obstacle to the UN’s work in a crisis situation, Mr. Egeland said.   He said he wanted a “one-stop shop” on the Government’s side, with the UN on the humanitarian side working with NGOs which have been facing many obstacles.   He agreed to establish a task force on food insecurity, where such UN agencies as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) could work with the Government to transform the country from one where food production is in decline into one that could feed itself. They were feeding 2 million people and that number could jump to 4 million before the April harvest was brought in, he said.   Asked about the Government removing tents put up as temporary shelters in October, he said officials, especially Mr. Mugabe, believed the tents gave the impression that there was a shelter crisis.   Mr. Egeland said he explained that, with permanent housing taking a long time to build, the procedure was to put up tents, then move people from tents into prefabricated shelters and then into permanent housing.   Secretary-General Kofi Annan remains deeply concerned about Humanitarian Situation in Zimbabwe. The United Nations continues to receive reports that tens of thousands of people are still homeless and in need of assistance, months after the eviction campaign began in May 2005.   He is particularly dismayed to learn that the Government of Zimbabwe"s Ad-Hoc Inter-Ministerial Cabinet Committee has rejected offers of UN assistance. In an official communication, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development stated that there is no longer a compelling need to provide temporary shelter as there is no humanitarian crisis. The Minister, in the same communication, also claims that Government interventions have addressed the most urgent shelter needs.   The above statements directly contradict the report by the Secretary-General"s Special Envoy on Human Settlements Issues in Zimbabwe, Anna Tibaijuka, as well as the 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 Secretary-General notes the Government"s decision to decline assistance comes despite extensive consultations on relief efforts that ensued in the past months between the United Nations and the Government. Meanwhile, the impending rainy season threatens to worsen the living conditions of the affected population.   The Secretary-General is disturbed by the continued suffering and makes 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 the humanitarian community in order to avert a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation.   Nov 2005 (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.   Aug 2005   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).
	Cultural Diversity, a new universal ethic in the cause of Development and Peace by UNESCO   Oct. 2005   "UNESCO endorses Cultural Protection", by Molly Moore. (Washington Post)   In a vote cast as a battle of global conformity vs. cultural diversity, delegates to UNESCO turned aside U.S. objections and overwhelmingly approved the first international treaty designed to protect movies, music and other cultural treasures from foreign competition.   The 148 to 2 vote at the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization emerged as a referendum on the world"s love-hate relationship with Hollywood, Big Macs and Coca-Cola.   "The American delegate doesn"t like to hear the word "protection," Joseph Yai Olabiyi Babalola, clad in the ornate gold robes of his tiny country, Benin, told UNESCO delegates. "Not all countries are equal - some need to be protected."   The measure passed at a time of growing fear in many countries that the world"s increasing economic interdependence, known as globalization, is bringing a surge of foreign products across their borders that could wipe out local cultural heritage. France, for instance, has long kept measures in place to protect its film industry against imports, notably Hollywood productions.   Called the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the document approved Thursday declares the rights of countries to "maintain, adopt and implement policies and measures that they deem appropriate for the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions on their territory."   Cultural expressions are defined as including music, art, language and ideas as well as "cultural activities, goods and services."   The convention would go into effect if 30 countries ratify it, a step that U.S. officials say is inevitable.   Advocates of the Treaty say it will help small nations promote and distribute their cultural products on the world market. Supporters included some of America"s closest allies, such as Canada and Britain. British delegate Timothy Craddock called the document "clear, carefully balanced and consistent with the principles of international law and fundamental human rights."   The showdown came two years after the United States rejoined UNESCO following a two-decade boycott that began over objections to the organization"s media policy.   The vote came less than a month after delegates at a U.N.-organized summit in Geneva sided against the United States to try to remove technical control of the Internet from U.S. hands. Talks deadlocked after the European Union refused to support the United States, in a move that stunned American officials.   "In the battles over issues critical to shaping the globe in the 21st century," French sociologist Eric Fassin said, "each side is defending its own best interests." Most of the world, he said, is asking: "Is there only one way to look at things?"   Oct 2005 (UNESCO)   The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted unanimously by the 185 Member States represented at the 31st session of the General Conference in 2001 in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, is the founding act of a new ethic being promoted by UNESCO at the dawn of the 21st century. For the first time the international community is provided with a wide-ranging standard-setting instrument to underpin its conviction that respect for cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue is one of the surest guarantees of development and peace.   The last decade of the 20th century has seen the advent of so-called conflicts of "cultural origins". The beginning of a new millennium was not very successful in averting the mistrust that people feel towards "others". In fact, our Planet counts an endless number of peoples, each with its specific language, traditions, know-how and identity, which is a source of infinite creativity and as such should enrich our lives. In this era of globalization, can we go on rejecting or remaining ignorant of this wealth?   Cultural Diversity has been at the core of UNESCO’s concerns since the Organization came into being more than 50 years ago. The adoption of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2 November 2002) confirmed yet again the Organization’s commitment to promoting the "fruitful diversity of ... cultures" for a more open and creative world in the new 21st century context. Visit the related web page
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