“This government will stop at nothing, even starving young children to realize their political ambitions,” said the ambassador, James D. McGee, in an interview.
The government ordered all humanitarian aid groups to suspend their
operations last week, charging that some of them were giving out food as
bribes to win votes for the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a June
27 presidential run-off against Mugabe.
But political analysts, aid workers and human rights groups contend that it
is, in fact, Zimbabwe’s governing party that has ruthlessly used food to
reward supporters and punish opponents in a country where agricultural
production has collapsed over the past decade and millions of people would
go hungry each year without emergency assistance.
The seizure of the truck is a case in point, McGee said.
The truck was hired by one of three nongovernmental organizations – CARE,
Catholic Relief Services and World Vision – that form a consortium and
contract with the United States Agency for International Development to
distribute food aid in Zimbabwe. Its cargo of wheat, beans and vegetable oil
was intended for 26 primary schools, American officials said, part of a
school food program that provides hungry children with one solid meal a day.
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