Only one-quarter of the funding needed to feed southern Africa in the coming year has been received by the World Food Programme. The need for food aid in Zimbabwe is so great that it alone will absorb two-thirds of these funds. But even if the organisation’s southern African programme eventually receives full funding, hunger in Zimbabwe will persist. Zimbabwe’s food crisis is not simply a consequence of grain shortages. In Zimbabwe, people are hungry because food is a political weapon.
Human Rights Watch fielded a research mission in Zimbabwe in February to investigate food distribution by both the government and international relief agencies. Despite the closed political environment and the pervasive reluctance of Zimbabweans to speak about food and land issues, Human Rights Watch found evidence that both the government’s subsidised food programme and international relief efforts were biased by political manipulation.
Perceived political adversaries of the ruling Zanu (PF) or the government encounter obstacles in gaining access to food. Members of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), top the list of perceived enemies. But this category also encompasses teachers, former commercial farm workers and urban residents — groups generally considered to favour the MDC. In effect, without a Zanu (PF) party card one cannot register for or receive government-subsidised grain.
Local authorities are also able to manipulate the international relief efforts. In some cases international agencies must rely on local authorities’ information to determine beneficiary status and register aid recipients.
According to insiders of the international aid regime, political concerns of donor governments also affect distribution. These sources indicated that some international donors oppose funding food relief for those resettled on the former commercial farms, which were redistributed under Zimbabwe’s land reform program. International aid agencies deny that political opposition to land reform is a factor, explaining that they cannot distribute relief food in these areas until the government completes an overall needs assessment. Yet both the former farm workers and the resettled farmers are hungry and cannot gain access to food.
The government should instruct authorities in charge of beneficiary lists to abide by nondiscrimination laws. The government should impress upon the leadership of all political parties that it is prohibited for politicians and party supporters either to use food to influence or reward constituents and voters, or to withhold access to food as reprisal for perceived political opposition. Punitive action should be taken against those who flout this prohibition.
International relief agencies have made considerable efforts to fight politicisation of relief food through tight controls on food distribution and to implement all aspects of relief efforts directly or through local nongovernmental organisations.
The international aid community and the donor countries that fund its programmes should not be influenced by any factor other than need. They must expand operations into the resettled commercial farm areas where some of Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable people are in dire need. Donors that have withdrawn support for humanitarian programmes in Zimbabwe should reconsider their duty to assist the countless people plagued by hunger.
