How one country created its own food crisis

Because Rashal's father was a politician, Rashal grew up in the suburbs and had more money than most other black girls in town. She was the first nonwhite to attend the neighborhood private school.

"I was not accepted," she states matter-of-factly. "Sometimes one of the girls would bring back lollipops from vacation in South Africa. There were 30 of us in the class and she would bring back 29. Nothing for me."

Rashal leans forward. "That was then – and this is now," she says slowly. "That's the way life goes. It's not about revenge. It's just a cycle. We have reclaimed what is ours."

What black Zimbabweans have reclaimed is land. Mr. Mugabe's fast-track land-reform policies were intended to redress the imbalance in land ownership and wealth in Zimbabwe by transferring farms from the minority white commercial farmers – who sat on vast tracts of fertile land and produced over 80 percent of the country's food – to the majority landless blacks.

But in practice, over the past two years, many of these farms were handed over to wealthy Zimbabweans connected to the government, like Rashal's family, who have little interest in farming. In other cases, the landless were trucked in to squat on these farms, but were not provided with the tools, seeds, or know-how needed to tend them properly. The former breadbasket of the region can no longer support even itself.

Now, the continuation of bad governmental practices is making it hard for international aid organizations to remedy the food problem.

Mugabe's government banned private food imports late last year. The government-run grain marketing board, which is managed by top military and intelligence officials, was given control over imports, allowing many of them to make a profit from the resale of food at exorbitant prices.

Worse yet, there are charges that food distribution is being politicized, with aid organizations being steered toward or away from certain areas. The government denies these allegations, but several aid organizations, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed this was taking place.

Last month, the WFP officially suspended the distribution of relief supplies in a district of southwestern Zimbabwe, charging that Mugabe's party was interfering with distributions – seizing food aid and intimidating workers.

"Relief food distributions are not the place for any kind of political activity," said a WFP statement. "WFP will only distribute its food on the basis of need without regard to partisan affiliation."

"This is not a black-white issue, although it is portrayed this way," says Zimbabwean economist Erich Bloch, a vocal critic of government. "This is about destroying the economy and hurting the poorest of the poor – all blacks – for the sake of the rich and powerful. The next six months will be the worst this country has ever seen, and the region will suffer for our suffering as well."

On the old road leading from Dete to Binga, in the northwest part of Zimbabwe, there is a little village with no name. People here are feeling the effects of food politics.

Only two children in this village attend school. The rest, barefoot and half naked, hang around all day by the rusting foosball machine, using unripe berries as the game balls when they get up enough energy for a match.

This area should be getting food shipments from Bulawayo, but no trucks have come this way. In Binga town, the nearest center, an attempt at distributing food a few months back was stopped when war veterans from a different area came in and claimed the food for themselves, according to eyewitnesses.

"We all went and voted for the MDC [the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change] in the elections, but we did not succeed," says one villager, Matias Muleya. "So now other regions get aid, but the government doesn't let the food come here."

Back at "Taks," Rashal is rushing to pick up her son from cricket practice. One of the World Vision trucks, stacked high with bags of corn, passes by. Rashal does not seem to notice.

"I'm running a business. I don't really care about hunger issues," she says. "I have my connections. I phone this one, that one – get what I need. It's not that I don't care. It's just, well, what could I do to help? I have nothing to do with the weather."

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