U.S. Envoy to Zimbabwe Decries Grim Humanitarian Situation

By Stephen Kaufman

Zimbabwe is facing a man-made food and health emergency that is being exacerbated by the actions of its government and the government's failure to implement a power-sharing agreement with its political opposition, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe says.

"We're seeing the humanitarian situation here in Zimbabwe really go down the tubes," Ambassador James McGee told reporters at the State Department in a November 20 videoconference.

According to estimates from the United Nations community, he said, "1.5 million Zimbabweans are at risk of food insecurity right now, and by the end of this crop season, that number could jump up to over 5 million people."

Sanitation is also a serious challenge, especially in areas near the South African border, where many Zimbabweans are trying to flee the country.

"There are now 294 confirmed deaths from cholera here in Zimbabwe," McGee said, along with more than 1,200 confirmed cases and another 2,500 unconfirmed cases of the disease.

Compounding matters, Zimbabwe's health system "has totally collapsed," and medical professionals are not being paid. "The three major hospitals here in Harare have closed," he said. Clinics in the countryside reportedly are unable to operate and are turning patients away. "In some places, police have been stationed outside of clinics to ensure that no one can enter the premises," McGee said.

The ambassador said the overall heath and food situation is "frankly, intolerable," and is concurrent with the political impasse between President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the opposition led by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

"I don't see anything that's going to alleviate these problems until the government of Robert Mugabe starts to act in good faith and deal with Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC faction in a true manner," McGee said.

Mugabe's grip over the country has become stronger during the past year, thanks to continued political payoffs to subordinates and the self-interested loyalty of security force leaders whose "hands are absolutely as bloody as his," McGee said.

RESTRICTIONS ON HUMANITARIAN AID EASED ONLY RECENTLY

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seeking to combat the heath and food emergency have faced government barriers inhibiting their ability to extend aid efforts to the countryside.

"The government put a ban on the ability of NGOs to distribute food back in June, but we've worked with the government and that ban was finally lifted about two weeks ago," McGee said. "What this means is that we're very, very far behind in our annual food distribution cycle. So we are working desperately now as hard as we can to try to catch up."

In addition, the ZANU-PF government also has finally allowed NGOs to fund their operations through foreign currency rather than with Zimbabwe's collapsing notes. McGee said annual inflation is currently at more than 210 million percent. The use of foreign funding also should help international aid agencies get food out to the countryside, according to the ambassador.

"We'll be able to rent the trucks that we need to deliver the food. We'll be able to pay the salaries of the additional people that we need to deliver the food," he said.

The total U.S. food and health assistance package for Zimbabwe has risen to $218 million for 2008, the ambassador said, and additional U.S. humanitarian funding is coming to Zimbabwe through international aid institutions such as the Global Fund.

To help address the cholera epidemic, the Bush administration is working with NGOs and local communities in Zimbabwe to provide clean water, water tablets and saline tablets.

Zimbabwe's education system also has "totally fallen apart" at the primary, secondary and university levels. McGee said Zimbabwe once had a higher literacy rate than the United States and spent 25 percent of its budget on education in the 1980s and early 1990s. "Today that figure is 18 cents per student per year."

Many schools have closed, university students are not in class, and there is "no hope that they're going to get back ... anytime soon," McGee said. He also related that his driver had been asked to pay an additional $700 fee to cover the costs of his children's public school. "That's just well beyond the ability of normal Zimbabweans to pay," he added.

With a government that is committed to taking care of its people and improving agricultural methods, Zimbabwe can quickly improve its humanitarian situation and return to its former status as the "breadbasket of Southern and Central Africa," he said. It will take longer to rid the country of endemic corruption and return to a market-driven economy.

"But again, if there is good will on the part of government, we in the international community are willing to step forward and help them as much as possible to achieve the results that they need," McGee said.

The United States will continue to put pressure on the Mugabe regime through targeted sanctions that he said are having an effect against ZANU-PF officials, whose foreign assets have been seized and who have been forced to take their children out of foreign schools.

McGee added that "unless something does happen in the very, very near future, we have no choice but to become more difficult, tougher, on our sanctions."

The Bush administration also will continue to work with the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union and the United Nations to encourage them to "spin up" their actions against the Mugabe regime.

SADC's negotiations that led to the September 15 power-sharing agreement between ZANU-PF and the MDC were "a watershed moment" for the group, but SADC needs to continue its pressure against the government to "ensure that the will of the people of Zimbabwe is met" and "that the agreement or unity government is established," he said.

He added that SADC "should not recognize Robert Mugabe as the legitimate president of Zimbabwe unless this agreement is implemented."

However, the Zimbabwean people also need to encourage change to help relieve their suffering, he said.

"As we can help them with the humanitarian assistance, and as much as we try to assist them with our political stance against this country, if there's going to be meaningful change in Zimbabwe, it's going to occur because of peaceful, democratic change here within the country," McGee said.

See the transcript of Ambassador McGee's update on the situation in Zimbabwe ( http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2008/November/20081120174042eaifas9.273928e-02.html ).

Source: U.S. Department of State

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