Zimbabwe on verge of starvation

Observer/Guardian:

Six months after the elections, Zimbabwe still lacks a functioning government and is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Following the worst wheat harvest since the independence war, bread has run out and sugar supplies are set to follow. USAid, the American government humanitarian agency, is warning that the country could run out of the maize, the staple food, by next month. Farming officials say the government's stated aim of producing maize on 500,000 hectares this season is unattainable.

'We are in serious trouble,' said Jabulani Gwaringa, of the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU), which represents small-scale operators. 'There is no seed, fertiliser and crop chemicals on the market. Banks are not offering farmers any credit. In July we had produced about 25,000 metric tons of seed maize. We are down to 9,000 because farmers opted to eat their hybrid seed or sell it to millers.'

One European diplomat said: 'We are already hearing isolated reports of child deaths from hunger.' In the poorest provinces, such as Matabeleland North, subsistence farmers have begun bartering their livestock for maize: one cow buys six buckets of maize, while four live chickens or a goat buy one bucket.

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Since Mugabe let his so-called war veterans loose on the mainly white-owned commercial farms in 2000, the government claims to have resettled six million poor blacks on the land. The figure is impossible to verify, but the most obvious outcome has been the collapse of the agriculture sector. In 1998 production of tobacco, flowers, maize and other vegetables yielded 18 per cent of GDP and 45 per cent of foreign currency earnings. Since Mugabe launched his land acquisition offensive, the number of commercial farmers has dwindled from 4,500 to less than 800.

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Mugabe's racist policies are leading to the starvation and ruin of his country and he is too prejudice to see it. It is one of the most self destructive governments in history. An outside enemy would never be this cruel.