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Fore
ign Minister Stan Mudenge denied yesterday that Zimbabwe was
snubbing a top UN official on a food assessment mission who was
scheduled to meet with government ministers this week.
Mudenge told a press conference that the government could not meet
with James Morris, the special UN envoy for humanitarian needs and
head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), on Tuesday because it
was holding its weekly cabinet meeting.
"We were in cabinet the whole day. If Morris had come he would have
met nobody," said Mudenge.
Morris, who is the agency's executive director, is on a five-nation
tour of the region to assess food security. He travelled to Malawi
on Tuesday after the Zimbabwe leg of the trip was scrapped.
Aid agencies estimate that around five-million Zimbabweans will
require emergency food aid this year, but the Zimbabwe government
has said it will not appeal for food aid because it expects a
bumper harvest.
A crop and food assessment mission comprising UN and government
officials was cancelled last month when the government recalled its
field officers.
Press reports here speculated that the Zimbabwe government was
deliberately avoiding Morris, who has been to Zimbabwe at least
twice in the last three years as the country battles with chronic
food shortages.
"You all read big things into small things," said Mudenge, adding
that the government planned to reschedule the meeting with Morris
to a later date.
The minister also hit out at UN agencies operating in Zimbabwe for
employing "political zealots" sympathetic to the opposition.
He cited two recent cases in which local UN security officers
circulated documents claiming that the lives of UN workers were in
danger because of the security situation in the country.
"This harms the relationship between Zimbabwe and these agencies,"
said Mudenge.
"These organisations should be a little more careful about
employing these political zealots, and make them get the cover of
the UN system to propagate their evil message," he said.
Mudenge warned that the government would clamp down on such
individuals if the UN did not.
The Zimbabwe government accuses the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) of deliberately painting a grim picture
about the situation in Zimbabwe to isolate President Robert
Mugabe's government. – Sapa-AFP.
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