THIRTEEN MILLION Africans risk starving between now and November, thanks more to local leadership failures than to drought. Naked greed and political calculation, when coupled with spotty rains and poor maize harvests across a broad swath of southern Africa, have resulted in disaster. Wealthier nations will now have to provide relief supplies, if only needy African governments let them. When the Group of Eight leading industrial nations meets this week in Canada, feeding Africa's hungry should be high on its agenda. Earlier this month, in the rural and urban markets of southern Africa, maize kernels and ground-up maize flour (the basis of all local meals) were either scarce or wildly expensive. I saw 50-kilogram sacks of maize being imported into Malawi from Mozambique, sold for a 15 percent profit, then transported to large cities for a further 20 percent markup. With worsening conditions, the price of a bag of unprocessed maize kernels will increase astronomically. The worst affected areas in Africa are Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where politicians refused to heed early warnings of crop failure, illicitly exported grain from their strategic stockpiles, profited from pilfered reserves, and now use food as a political weapon. Lesotho and Swaziland are also facing shortages. The efforts of such energetic suppliers of food relief as the World Food Program of the United Nations and US and European bilateral donors have been thwarted by theft and profiteering on the part of some governmental officials and, in Zimbabwe, on the embattled regime's determination to keep food away from its opponents. Additionally, the Zimbabwean government has refused, on spurious grounds, to accept US-donated maize in case it might have been grown on genetically modified plants. (The United States sanctioned Zimbabwe's leadership earlier this year, so this is a tit for tat at the expense of the poor.)
Of the 13 million Africans facing imminent hunger and possibly starvation, 6 million to 7 million are Zimbabweans. Their country was once the bread basket of Africa, with healthy annual surpluses of maize as well as good supplies of winter-grown wheat. In 2000, however, the government of President Robert Mugabe began attacking the most productive white- and black-owned commercial farms, rapidly destroying their ability to grow food or cash crops. By 2001, for a variety of reasons, Zimbabwe was effectively bankrupt, so Mugabe's men exported a vast strategic grain reserve for cash. When it became clear that the 2002 maize harvest in March would be small (mostly because of farm invasions, not so much because of weak rains), the government store was bare and there was no money to purchase maize from South Africa or Argentina. To compound the misery of Zimbabweans, the country's minister of agriculture and other associates of Mugabe refused until April to agree that the country would run out of staple food. Opposition politicians had predicted disaster last September. But for purposes of propaganda before the presidential election in March, his government denied the possibility of shortfalls. Even after belatedly acknowledging the country's precarious food situation in April, the government has harassed external relief efforts and has succeeded in denying food relief to areas that voted against Mugabe in March. About 3 million Malawians also risk starving. The national maize harvest in March was much smaller than usual, and the country's strategic grain reserve, which usually compensates for bad harvests, was empty. Politicians had appropriated 167,000 tons of maize - the entire reserve - and sold it. Several key national leaders profited handsomely.
In Zambia, where about 2 million may starve, politicians mismanaged the supply of seeds and fertilizer, then refused to prepare for pending food shortages until it was too late. American and European aid agencies and the World Food Program are now rushing maize and wheat to Malawi and Zambia, purchasing the South African surplus to supply the same countries, and negotiating unsuccessfully with the Zimbabwean authorities over when and how relief shipments will be received and to whom the food will go. Because of governmental delays and muddles in all three countries, poverty, and transportation bottlenecks, the food donors' valiant efforts will be insufficient to prevent millions from perishing. Women and children are especially vulnerable. Donors may be able to move sufficient food into Malawi and Zambia greatly to mitigate some hunger. Lesotho and Swaziland will get help from South Africa and the World Food Program. But only South African official action or an unlikely humanitarian impulse by Mugabe will make food available to those at greatest risk in Zimbabwe. Washington and London should speak loudly against a ruler who kills his own people, but so far their shouting has availed little and hardly dented the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans.:
