Common Sense
Top UN Official Laments Loss of Zimbabwe's White Farmers

30^th January 2003

HARARE -- A top UN official Saturday lamented the loss of white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe, evicted under a government land reform scheme while up to eight million people in the country are threatened by famine.

James Morris, the UN's special envoy on humanitarian needs in Southern Africa, told a press conference that he was aware that "a highly productive part of the (Zimbabwean) agricultural community is no longer engaged in agricultural production".

Most of Zimbabwe's white commercial farmers, who numbered 4,500 three years ago, have had their land seized by the government under a controversial land reform program.

"That's a real loss to this country and to the rest of the world," Morris said.

Aid agencies have blamed the controversial land reforms for contributing, along with a severe drought, to the current critical food shortages in Zimbabwe. The government says the drought is entirely to blame.

The envoy, who visited feeding schemes for hungry children in a low-income suburb of Harare early Saturday, also denied reports carried in the state-controlled Herald newspaper that he had endorsed land reform. The paper, which interviewed Morris after he met with President Robert Mugabe on Friday, reported the envoy had accepted "the irreversibility of land reform in essence."

Morris, who is also director of the UN's World Food Program (WFP) told reporters at a press conference that the Herald "absolutely, 100 percent misrepresented what I said".

He said he had only commented on the importance of "a really, vigorous, robust agricultural economy" for Zimbabwe and the region.

Morris and his delegation, who have been in the country since Thursday, have held talks with Mugabe, aid agencies, government ministers and the opposition.

Included in their discussions was how to return food security to Zimbabwe, Morris said.

The UN food agency estimates that only 30 percent of the country's productive land has been planted this season, while production of maize, the staple food, is officially reported to have fallen by 60 percent.

"This country has been so important to all of Southern Africa over the years -- at one time enough food was produced here to feed nearly all of Southern Africa," Morris said.

Morris is on a tour of the stricken Southern African region, where more than 15 million people in six countries including Zimbabwe, are affected.

Tehran Times