US embassy cable - 03HARARE1712

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 001712 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
NSC FOR SENIOR DIRECTOR FRAZER 
LONDON FOR GURNEY 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, SOCI, SA, ZI 
SUBJECT: ZIMBABWE WAFFLING ON EFFORT TO CONTROL FOOD RELIEF 
EFFORTS 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED 
 
1.  (SBU) SUMMARY: In meetings with House International 
Relations Committee Africa Subcommittee staffer Malik Chaka 
August 20-21, Minister for Special Affairs (and ZANU-PF Party 
Chairman) John Nkomo and Minister of Public Service, Labor 
and Social Services July Moyo emphasized the government's 
priority on assuring smooth relations with the international 
humanitarian relief community.  They maintained that a 
recently announced policy requiring food assistance to be 
channeled through village headmen was meant to assure broader 
and more transparent distribution, and not to disrupt or to 
politicize distrubution.  During the past week, the 
government appears to be softening its stance, at least in 
response to the donors.  WFP/UNDP is currently negotiating an 
MOU with the government that will clarify policy.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (SBU) Nkomo told Chaka on August 20 that a new GOZ policy 
issue on August 14 requiring humanitarian food relief to be 
administered through village headmen and rural councils was 
intended to enhance transparency and local involvement. 
(NOTE: The government quietly promulgated the policy in July 
but only publicized and began attempting to implement it in 
August.  The policy, which was announced in provincial level 
meetings with NGOs, severely limits NGO involvement in 
selecting beneficiaries and undertraking physical 
distrubtion, both of these functions being transferred to 
headmen and rural councils dominated by ZANU-PF.  The initial 
meetings were attended by Minister of Social Welfare Moyo and 
Foreign Minister Mudenge, who reportedly spoke to the NGOs 
present in harsh and confrontational terms.  END NOTE) 
 
3.  (SBU) Nkomo reported that there had problems in local 
distribution efforts, including efforts by some relief 
workers to politicize the distribution.  Headmen knew the 
local communities most closely and were best situated to 
administer distribution in a manner that would fully address 
the beneficiaries' needs.  Nkomo emphasized that the headmen 
were not in the government; district administrators and other 
government representatives could monitor distributions but 
could not control application of eligibility criteria.  He 
emphasized that transparency and broader distibution were the 
policy's principal objectives.  Nkomo said that he understood 
Chaka's and Ambassador Sullivan's concerns that the policy 
would disrupt and politicize food distribution and assured 
them the government would work with relevant donors on 
details. 
 
4.  (SBU) Moyo essentially echoed Nkomo's points in a meeting 
with Chaka and Ambassador Sullivan on August 21.  He 
maintained that the policy was not new, it merely 
memorialized practices already in effect -- a catalogue of 
best practices in effect.  He assured that donors would 
maintain control over their programs by setting criteria and 
closely monitoring distributions undertaken by headmen.  He 
noted the value of international efforts but asserted that 
they generated numerous local complaints -- more so than 
government food distributions.  The new policy was intended 
to minimize such complaints.  Moyo reported that, discounting 
WFP commitments and government purchases, Zimbabwe may still 
be 600,000 tons short of meeting its food needs, underscoring 
the importance of continued close collaboration with the 
international community. 
 
4.  (SBU) Chaka's visit to a World Vision distribution event 
in rural Matabeleland South on August 25 disclosed no 
disruption in the donor's control of its operation but UNDP 
reported that its staff had begun to get pressure related to 
the policy.  UNDP and WFP have met with Mugabe and with the 
Ministry and reported that the government appears prepared to 
back-track.  Donors will seek to secure control over 
distribution operations through a WFP/UNDP MOU with the 
government.  The MOU expired in November 2002 and is being 
renegotiated.  The bilateral MOUs between the GOZ and our 
three C-SAFE partners also will need to be signed again for a 
one-year period before the new year. 
 
5.  (SBU) COMMENT: The policy document appears to have been a 
clumsy government effort to get the upper hand in MOU 
negotiations that were underway before its promulgation.  The 
government has backed down from similar attempts to gain 
control of food distribution in the past, but UNDP has 
expressed concern that GOZ attitudes seem to be hardening 
(septel).  Sharpening the GOZ's imperative now is that the 
Grain Marketing Board, the government's food distribution 
organ, now lacks sufficient resources to begin to feed 
traditional constituencies in its politically driven domestic 
relief efforts.  The government is loath to turn over such 
constituencies to international relief and thereby relinquish 
ZANU-PF influence over its heartland.  The donors have told 
UNDP that the proposed new rules of the game are not 
acceptable and have urged the UNDP to take a tough line in 
negotiating the MOU.  Proposed USG policy position will 
follow septel. 
SULLIVAN