The decision to ban charity organization Care International flew in the face of grandstanding statements by Robert Mugabe at the Food and Agriculture Summit in Rome last week that Zimbabwe was self-sufficient and that hunger in the crisis-torn country had been caused by the West, who he accused of attempting to starve his nation.
The decision has been met with outrage, with the US State department, which has given Zimbabwe USD170 million in aid describing the decision as “a tragedy.” CARE is one of the largest NGOs working in the country and provides assistance, including distributing food to Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable people, including orphans, the sick and the elderly.
The Mugabe regime has accused CARE of supporting the MDC ahead of the June 27 presidential runoff vote between Mugabe and challenger Morgan Tsvangirai.
A CARE official has denied the accusations and said the organization’s assistance is “nonpolitical and nonreligious,” and speculated the government could be angry at “our insistence on assisting people across the political divide.”
US State department spokesman Sean McCormack said “the practical effect of banning CARE and not allowing them to do their work is that 110,000 people or so will not get fed.”
Care International spokesman, Kenneth Walker accused Zimbabwe’s government of showing “a hardened indifference to the plight of its people.” International observers estimate that 4 million people, or one-third of the country’s population, need food aid.
“That is a far cry from Zimbabwe’s proud history as a net exporter of food,” McCormack said. “It used to be one of the bread baskets of southern Africa.”
He added that it is “a cruel irony” that international aid was suspended “while President Mugabe is in Rome feigning interest in the issue of food security.”
Speaking in Rome on Tuesday, Mugabe accused
Britain and its Western allies of trying to topple him through “illegal regime change” by crippling Zimbabwe economically.
Zimbabwe Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche said “several other nongovernmental organizations will be asked to cease their operations while we investigate them.” He accused NGOs in Zimbabwe of being “involved in plans to undermine our candidate.”
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa also told State television last month that CARE and Plan International were to blame for Mugabe’s poor showing in some areas of the country in the March elections.
However, National Association of NGOs spokesman Fambai Ngirande has rejected the charges and instead accused Mugabe’s government of “moving to stop assistance reaching even those who had been receiving aid before the (March 29) election.”
Post published in: News