July 18, 2008
Zimbabwe Ban Continues to Stymie Relief Organizations
By Caroline Preston
Six weeks after a directive from Zimbabwe’s government ground aid work in the country to a halt, charities’ efforts to resume their operations have largely been thwarted and more than a million people are still living without food aid and medical care.
A letter from CARE, Plan International, Save the Children UK, and a handful of other groups this week requesting that the government lift its ban on humanitarian work was rebuffed by Zimbabwean officials, who said the informal nonprofit coalition wasn’t registered with the government.
While World Vision plans to partially reopen its office next week and resume a feeding program to schools, most charities are still in limbo.
“Everyone is just waiting and hoping,” said Hearly Mayr, a spokesman with Adventist Development and Relief Agency International.
Somewhat encouraging for aid groups, however, is that the prohibition on humanitarian work has been relaxed somewhat since it was first announced in a letter on June 4th. Government officials have said that aid to chronically ill people and to schoolchildren can continue amidst the ban.
A skeletal staff plans to return to World Vision’s main office in Zimbabwe on Monday to help provide such assistance. Meanwhile, the Consortium of Southern Africa Food Security Emergency, which organizes food aid on behalf of CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and World Vision, expects to resume the delivery of food next week to 400,000 children.
Edward Brown, chief of party for the consortium, said some local government officials had requested that his group resume food aid. But he worried that police officers might still stop aid workers and prevent them from gaining entry to schools.
“It’s a question of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing,” he said. “We’re trying to be as careful as possible because we don’t want to put the people we serve or our staff at risk.”
The ban on aid work was imposed by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s party in part to quell political opposition ahead of the country’s June 27th presidential election. Some aid workers were hopeful that the suspension would be lifted following the election, but so far, those hopes have fallen flat.
Mr. Brown said that even if the ban is lifted, it will take some time before operations can return to normal.
“It’s like General Motors stopping the production of their cars for over a month,” he said. “It takes a while to get that machine running on all cylinders again.”
Many aid groups say they expect the number of people in Zimbabwe needing food to triple by the end of the year, to more than 3 million.
Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Report Compares Quality of Life in U.S. Cities
Next: Templeton Foundation Anticipates Big Asset Gain Following Founder's Death
A great supporter of World Vision is AIDtoCHILDREN.com.
AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a dual-purpose site for building an English
vocabulary and raising money for under privileged children in the most
impoverished places around the world.
Check it out at http://www.aidtochildren.com
— Mike Thorn Jul 21, 08:08 AM #
The answers are very simple, we have to set up a world army/coalition to overide any prohibitions to allow food and aid to people who need it PERIOD. Those world armies will protect the staff workers and anyone who gets in their way, will have to be dealt with & the entire world will know(crime against humanity)!
We can no longer allow any country in the world to not allow aid to people who need it and we help them to do it.
IT WILL BE CALLED A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, and any country who doesn’t allow aid will be punished by the WORLD.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE, why are we allowing this to happen, not stick up for moral rights, let people do what ever/not be punished for their actions, it isn’t okay, and the time is now to do something about it.
Well oiled machines, need no time period to operate, they operate once the switch is turned back on.
RBInternational L3C, is a very well oiled machine all we need is the switch to be turned ON, and there is NO OFF SWITCH ON OUR MACHINE!
WE ARE COMING AND FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION! The Elite World Peace Special Forces have arrived!
World Peace,
World Peace Ambassadors Arthur and Rose Davis
RBInternational L3C.
Innovation For A New Era Of Living.
— World Peace Ambassadors Arthur and Rose Davis Jul 21, 06:44 PM #