Zimbabwe blocks access by aid groups
CARE, others aiding rival, Mugabe says
JOHANNESBURG - Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans - orphans and old people, the sick and the down and out - have lost access to food and other basic humanitarian assistance as their government has clamped down on international aid groups it says are backing the political opposition, relief agencies say.
In recent days, CARE, one of the largest nonprofit groups working in the country, has been ordered by Zimbabwe's government to suspend all operations, which help 500,000 of the country's most vulnerable people. This month alone, CARE would have fed more than 110,000 people in schools, orphanages, old-age homes and other programs, it said.
But the aid restrictions go far beyond any one group. Muktar Farah, deputy head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Zimbabwe, said yesterday that millions of people have lost assistance because of what he called "the shrinking of humanitarian space."
"NGOs have been told to scale down or stop operations throughout the country," he said, referring to nongovernmental organizations.
Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, speaking yesterday in Rome at a United Nations conference on world food supplies, accused relief agencies of interfering in politics and contended that the West had conspired "to cripple Zimbabwe's economy" and bring about "illegal regime change."
"Funds are being channeled through nongovernmental organizations to opposition political parties, which are a creation of the West," he said. "These Western-funded NGOs also use food as a political weapon with which to campaign against government, especially in the rural areas."
On Friday and Monday, representatives of aid groups in Zimbabwe were summoned by administrators in four districts and instructed to cease all work in the field until a bitterly contested presidential runoff is held on June 27 between Mugabe, in power for 28 years, and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Aid groups expect such summons from more districts.
In a summary of one such meeting, compiled by an aid group, representatives from Mugabe's office, the police and the army warned the groups not to say anything publicly about their withdrawal and not to conduct any operations at night.
Aid workers and human-rights groups say the restrictions are meant to prevent them from witnessing attacks on opposition activists and supporters, often during nighttime raids, amid the government's increasingly violent crackdown on those it sees as a threat to its hold on power.
The UN Children's Fund said Monday that 10,000 children had been displaced by the violence, scores beaten and that some schools had been taken over by forces supporting the government and turned into centers of torture. In a statement, it expressed worry about the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable and orphaned children, given how many aid groups have restricted their operations "due to threats, requests to do so by authorities or general 'concern at current uncertainties.' "
Zimbabwean political analysts and civic leaders say that Mugabe and ZANU-PF, his governing party, are themselves seeking to use food as a political weapon in a country, once the region's bread basket, where hunger now afflicts millions. The government recently bought 600,000 tons of corn. By barring NGOs from giving out food in some areas, the governing party controls food distribution and can use it to reward supporters and punish opponents.
"They've always been willing to forgo the needs of the people in their political interests," said Fambai Ngirande, a spokesman for Zimbabwe's National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations, which has more than 1,000 members in Zimbabwe.
Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, noted that while the opposition defeated large numbers of ZANU-PF politicians in the March 29 election, the government has not allowed the newly elected local officials to take office until after the presidential runoff. It is through these local politicians, he said, that the party determines who is eligible for food aid and other assistance.
In CARE's case, Cabinet ministers have accused its staff of distributing election pamphlets and encouraging people to vote for the opposition. CARE vehemently denies the charges and says the government has not offered any evidence to back up the allegations.
