The United States ambassador to Zimbabwe accused President Robert Mugabe’s government on Friday of illegally using food aid as a weapon to get votes in the country’s run-off election on June 27.
”That is exactly what is happening,” ambassador James McGee said in a video conference call from Harare when asked if the government was using food as a weapon.
”We are dealing with a desperate regime here which will do anything to stay in power,” he added.
McGee told Washington-based reporters that if potential voters wanted food aid, they had to show their voting cards, which indicated whether they belonged to Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party or the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
”If you have an MDC card, you can receive food, but first you have to give the national identity card to the government officials, which means they will hold on to it until after the election. Again, you will not be able to vote,” he said.
Supporters of the ruling party were allowed to hold on to their identity cards and so were free to vote in the election. Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980.
”The only way you can access food is to give up your right to vote,” said McGee. ”It is absolutely illegal.”
On Thursday, Mugabe’s government suspended the work of all international aid agencies in the Southern African country, saying some of them were campaigning for the opposition.
McGee condemned the move and said while there appeared to be enough food aid in stock until the election, he predicted ”massive, massive starvation” after the poll as supplies ran out.
On Thursday, five US and two British diplomats were detained at a police roadblock about 80km outside the capital, Harare, in an incident that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called ”outrageous behaviour.”
Political rallies banned
Meanwhile, South Africa on Friday called on Zimbabwean political parties to ”desist from any action” that may prevent a free and fair presidential run-off election in that country.
President Thabo Mbeki had earlier in the week urged the government of Zimbabwe to do everything possible to ensure that every party involved did so in conditions that were free and fair, according to a statement released by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
”The South African government is currently seized with the… facilitation between the relevant parties in Zimbabwe to ensure that the presidential run-off elections scheduled for later in the month take place under optimal conditions that will enable the will of the Zimbabwean people to be expressed,” the statement said.
This came as Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was freed without charge on Friday after being detained for the second time this week by police while campaigning ahead of the run-off.
The MDC said police also told Tsvangirai that all his party’s rallies across the country had been banned indefinitely.
The South African government said it hoped that the treatment of US diplomats in Zimbabwe on Thursday could be resolved speedily.
”The South African government has noted that the United States of America’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has raised, bilaterally, with the Zimbabwean authorities, the plight of US diplomats in the country.
”The South African government expresses its hope that the matter will be resolved as speedily as possible at a bilateral level,” it said. — Reuters, Sapa