IS THE US AND UK STARVING PEOPLE IN AFRICA ON PURPOSE?

Politics To Destroy A Pariah Country

European-oriented powers are using financial neglect to decimate African nations in their disfavor.  In an effort to get the head of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, they have forced food aid to 2.6 million starving Zimbabweans to be slashed in half.  Their programs to give Mugabe �pay back� for taking back land whites obtained during the colonist era have hit a new low in their lack of funding for food for Southern Africans.

 The U.S. and British governments are using the United Nation�s agency for world-wide food distribution, the World Food Program (WFP), as a shield for misdeeds against Mugabe and his country.  The Rome-based WFP became a U.N. agency for emergency and development projects in 1963.  Over the years, the WFP has invested $27.8 billion and 43 million metric tons of food to combat hunger, promote economic and social development and provide relief assistance in world emergencies.   $12.5 billion of WFP�s budget is in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Currently, the WFP is trying to feed 6.5 million hungry people in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland.

 A lack of funding from the U.S., U.K. and other donors, has caused WFP a $161.3 million funding shortfall and forced the agency to cut the amount of food going to hungry Zimbabweans next year.  Because of drought conditions in the area, the WFP is calling for urgent, cash donations to fund its Southern African food programs.  WFP officials say the situation will only deteriorate if more funding does not arrive soon, since need is generally highest during the first months of the year before the annual harvest.  Four million Zimbabweans will need food aid early next year.

Starving people to get them to topple the head of state isn�t new to Western Powers.  People after Mugabe�s head boast that Zimbabwe was once Southern Africa's �bread basket� and had huge and efficient farms that produced enough food that there were surpluses for sale abroad.  They say the reason food production has declined and left millions without food is because Mugabe seized those white-owned farms in 2000.  They say Zimbabwe used to grow more than 1.8 million tons of grain to feed people and livestock in Africa; and Mugabe's government's confiscation of 90 percent of the productive land from white farmers had been a major cause of the current crisis.  They cite that: this summer, the fourth since President Mugabe confiscated most white-owned farms; the harvest is down to a third of normal production, the lowest in more than 50 years.

At the end of the day, foreign food suppliers are showing their funding reluctance at what they see as a "man made crisis".  The U.S., Britain and the European Union say they�ve been providing more than 90 percent of funds used to feed Zimbabweans.  But, since it began seeking donations in July for the current crisis, the WFP says donors contributed about $161 million of a total of $311 million needed to continue food aid at current levels through June 2004.  The U.S. gave about $80 million, with the European Union and Britain, Sweden and Australia contributing another $56 million.  The remaining $20 million has come from about 30 governments.

Unless more donations toward the WFP goal of $311 Million arrive, the agency says over 7 million Southern Africans will not have the strength of purpose to plant crops for next year.   But, with European publications blaring out that, �Foreign food suppliers are showing fatigue at what most see as a crisis brought on by the Government�  its going to take others stepping up to the plate.  Aid officials say supplies for Zimbabwe of staples like cooking oil will completely run out in early January 2004 and those shortages could soon extend to the other Southern African countries, where a combination of drought and insufficient donations threatens to worsen hunger problems even as the harvest season begins.

There is enough food in the world today for every man, woman and child to lead healthy and productive lives.  Yet, hunger afflicts one out of every seven people on earth � with the most impact in Africa.  If concerned people continue to wait on European governments to do the right thing in, and for Africa, hunger and death there will continue.  While African Americans continue to pursue political correctness for Africa, they also need to prompt their churches and groups to make practical donations such as cash, food such as flour, beans, oil, salt and sugar,; and basic items necessary to grow, store and cook food, to Africans via the WFP by forwarding gifts through the United Nations Headquarters in New York.