HARARE - The United States said it gave Zimbabwe 8,500 tonnes of maize this week to ease a food shortage but a further 10,000 tonnes was rejected because it did not have a certificate saying it had not been genetically modified.
In a statement issued late last week, the U.S. embassy in Harare said the latest aid had brought the total U.S. contribution to be distributed by President Robert Mugabe's government during the food crisis to 42,930 tonnes worth $27.5 million. "(But) in May, the U.S. offered an additional shipment of 10,000 metric tonnes of whole kernel yellow maize to Zimbabwe.
"However, when the government of Zimbabwe did not waive its requirement that entering commodities must be certified as entirely non-GMO (genetically modified origin), the maize was reallocated to Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia," it said.
Zimbabwe government spokesmen were not immediately available on the weekend, but a senior agricultural official said it was standard government procedure to turn down food imports or donations without certificates saying they were not genetically modified.
"The statement you are talking about there sounds like we have done something very unusual...and it is difficult not to conclude that some people are deliberately testing our systems for cheap politics and publicity," he said.
"There is an attempt to condemn all our agricultural policies even where it's not necessary," he told Reuters.
Analysts say millions of Zimbabweans are facing starvation due to drought and reduced food production after Mugabe's controversial seizures of white-owned commercial farms for black resettlement.
The U.S. embassy said the U.S. food aid was meant for the most needy, but warned that Mugabe's government could jeopardise the assistance programme if it tried to use it in a politically partisan way.
Aid agencies say about three million Zimbabweans, nearly 25 percent of the national population, are facing starvation, but the government rejects accusations that it is discriminating against opposition supporters in its food distribution.
Mugabe, who retained power in March in a controversial election condemned by many Western powers, including the United States, says his opponents are wrong to blame him for the food shortage.
The government says the shortage is due to drought which has affected other southern African states, and that Zimbabwe's staple maize is largely produced by small-scale black farmers.:
