Amnesty International The Wire – November 2004 Unfair food distribution in Zimbabwe means millions of people may go hungry Millions of people in Zimbabwe are going hungry as access to food continues to diminish. Until mid-2004 international food aid programmes provided much needed relief. But international food aid stopped when the government of Zimbabwe told the UN and donors that the country had had a “bumper harvest” in 2004 and no longer needed assistance. The government’s claims have been widely discredited. According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, which comprises UN agencies, non-governmental organizations and government departments, at least 2.3 million rural people will need food assistance before next April’s harvest. Some 2.5 million people in urban areas are also expected to have difficulty accessing adequate food.

Stories of growing hunger and food insecurity in Zimbabwe emerge almost daily. Rather than fulfil its obligation to ensure the right to food for everyone under its jurisdiction, the government of Zimbabwe is manipulating the country’s food shortages for political purposes and to punish political opponents.

During the armed struggle for independence in the 1970s, the minority government of Ian Smith deliberately withheld food from areas in an attempt to starve out nationalist combatants. The manipulation of food for political ends is a tactic that the newly independent government, headed by Robert Mugabe, was to employ again in 1984 in Matebeleland. Hoping to prevent a few hundred armed fighters from accessing food, stores were closed and relief aid to a drought-stricken region was stopped. Thousands of civilians suffered. Today, Zimbabweans are facing the same threat.

The cessation of most international food aid distribution has left millions of people dependent on grain distributed by the government-controlled Grain Marketing Board (GMB), which has a near monopoly on the trade in and distribution of maize – the staple food in Zimbabwe. But it is unclear whether the GMB has sufficient stocks to meet the country’s grain needs. The GMB also has a history of discriminatory distribution of the grain it controls. Those who do not support the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), have regularly been denied access to GMB grain. At elections, government officials and supporters have publicly threatened people’s access to food if they do not vote ZANU-PF.

Parliamentary elections are due to be held in Zimbabwe in March 2005, the height of the “hungry season”. Given the GMB’s history of discriminatory distribution, AI is gravely concerned about further violations of the right to adequate food and the right to freedom from discrimination in the run-up to the 2005 parliamentary elections.

Discrimination and the manipulation of Zimbabwe’s food crisis for political ends are among the issues covered in the report, Zimbabwe: Power and hunger – violations of the right to food (AFR 46/026/2004), launched in South Africa on15 October, World Food Day. To listen to an audioclip of an interview with a Zimbabwean shopkeeper go to http://emedia.amnesty.org/zimbabwe-111004-eng.ram

Take action!

Please write to the Zimbabwe authorities calling on them to ensure that all persons under Zimbabwe’s jurisdiction have access to adequate food and that the distribution of all government-controlled food is made transparent and open to public scrutiny.

His Excellency The President Hon Robert G Mugabe Office of the President Private Bag 7700 Causeway Harare Zimbabwe Fax: 00 263 4 708 820 / 708 211

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