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Zimbabwe Report

UNDP accepts GOZ `assurances on food aid distribution

September 29, 2003

Last month, the government issued a new directive on food aid distribution. In future, said July Moyo, the minister of Social Welfare, government officials and village heads would decide who gets food--thereby reversing the established practice whereby the humanitarian agencies deliver aid on a non-partisan basis to those in need. "Zero tolerance!" replied the World Food Program. "We have not had any incidents of political interference. If we have a problem, we will stop." Discussions with the government were reported to be continuing, with the international aid agencies seeking "clarification" of the new directive. A few days later, UN humanitarian co-ordinator, Victor Angelo, said the government had given an assurance that the WFP would retain control of food-aid distribution.

That assurance turned out to be verbal, and worth as much as the breath with which it was spoken. Last week, the government forced the UN's Relief and Recovery Unit to close its provincial offices, citing procedural irregularities, which the UN denied. But the response was decidedly less robust than the previous "zero tolerance". "While the situation is not ideal, field staff are being allowed to go out into the field from Harare," a UN official said. Discussions with the government were--again--continuing. What next? Escorts of youth militia on the food trucks? Followed by discussions. "Isolated" incidents of blatant food-aid discrimination, which turn out to be widespread? More discussions. The seizure of food stocks and humanitarian-aid delivery vehicles by the government? Nothing more to discuss.

In 1973, four Swedes held in a bank vault for six days during a robbery became attached to their captors, a phenomenon dubbed the Stockholm Syndrome. There seems to be a Zimbabwean variant of the Stockholm Syndrome at work here. The aid agencies are not, of course, hostages, but they are giving the impression that they are. They are not the first to be seduced into this kind of response to the Zimbabwe government, but they have less excuse than others to take ministerial "assurances" at face value. They have, after all, been here before. This is not the first season where the government has tried to take control of food-aid distribution, and this year conditions are tighter.

The government has little or no maize stocks, and the population at large is acutely aware that what food there is has been donated by the very people the government labels as Zimbabwe's enemies. Such foreign identification with humanitarian aid is against the interests of the government, and so it will try and bring it to an end. Border Gezi graduates, for instance, have been fed the astonishing fiction that western scientists have gained control of Zimbabwe's weather. The government will also try to regain the means to punish those it sees as "disloyal" by denying them food, whatever it says to the UN. The government will bluster about national sovereignty and blackmail, and it will get all worked up about bureaucratic "irregularities." It will continue giving "assurances"--while frustrating work on the ground wherever it can, but at the same time it needs to feed its own supporters. The government is bluffing and, like all bullies and bluffers, it will back down if confronted. It's high time the aid agencies put their collective feet down. For their reputation, for their own self-respect, and, more importantly, for the sake of millions of Zimbabweans. Whatever party they support.

All letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions of the submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice for Agriculture.