US More Than Doubles Emergency Cholera Aid to Zimbabwe (Bush African Policy Enlightened)

VOA reports that The Bush administration is more than doubling emergency U.S. aid to Zimbabwe to combat the cholera epidemic. The US blames on the government of President Robert Mugabe for the crisis.

The Bush administration is coupling its announcement of more aid to Zimbabwe with an escalation of its criticism of Mr. Mugabe, who it accuses of transforming Zimbabwe into a failed state.At a State Department news conference, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Henrietta Fore, said the United States is committing another $6.2 million in emergency aid to battle the cholera outbreak, on top of $4.6 million already provided. Fore said the cholera epidemic cannot be separated from the economic crisis in Zimbabwe stemming from years of misrule by Mr. Mugabe and the political stalemate stemming from this year's disputed elections.

"Over the years, Zimbabwe's health system has deteriorated, and infrastructure has collapsed. Poor water and sanitation systems, coupled with increasingly-inaccessible health and other services have caused the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe. This outbreak is a breakdown of Zimbabwe's government services, pure and simple," she said.The aid official said the new aid will focus on water, sanitation and hygiene programs and supplies, and that a team of U.S. disaster relief experts has been sent to Zimbabwe to coordinate the delivery of the assistance and assess further needs.Fore was joined at the press event by U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee, who is in Washington to receive a State Department Human Rights Week award for rights advocacy in Zimbabwe.McGee said the Zimbabwean president and cronies, who have rebuffed international calls for power-sharing with the opposition, are holding Zimbabwe hostage and said the once-prosperous country is rapidly deteriorating into what he termed failed state status...

President Bush has pursued an enlightened policy on Africa as the following report from USATODAY attests:

"The Bush administration has broadened and deepened U.S. policy towards Africa," said Melvin Foote, president and CEO of Constituency for Africa, a coalition of groups that work to improve conditions on the continent.
"I don't know if it got involved for all the right reasons, but once it got involved it realized this was a good thing to do," Foote said of the Bush administration's efforts to stabilize Africa's fledgling democracies and combat its daunting health problems.

AIDS a top priority

Most impressive of these efforts has been Bush's work to stop the spread of AIDS and treat its victims in sub-Saharan Africa, where there were 22 million people infected with HIV at the end of last year.
This year, Bush signed a bill that authorized up to $48 billion to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria — most of it to be spent in sub-Saharan Africa — from 2009 through 2013. Since 2003, the Bush administration has provided funding to increase the number of Africans receiving anti-retroviral drugs from 50,000 to about 1.4 million.......

Starving Zimbabweans mix cow dung with their food

Zimbabwe's official inflation rate stands at 231,000,000%. In all probability this is an underestimate of the real inflation rate. The Zimbabwean Dollar is practically worthless. It is estimated that more than 80% of the country's population lives on less than $1.5 dollars a day whilst 50% is chronically malnourished. Cholera has spread from the cities to rural areas whilst an anthrax outbreak has also been reported in Hurungwe 300km north of the capital, Harare. Local government services have in many cases collapsed. Raw sewage frequently seeps out onto streets and there are widespread sanitation problems.
Now comes a report from Caritas which states that Zimbabweans are mixing cow dung with their food.

Zimbabwe's economy, agriculture, its education and healthcare systems have virtually collapsed. Caritas staff in rural Zimbabwe are reporting that families are mixing their dwindling food supplies with cow dung to stave off hunger. Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Lesley-Anne Knight said, “Our staff say that people in Zimbabwe are dropping dead on the streets from Cholera. They’ve witnessed people mixing cow dung with what’s left of their food to make it go further. This is poverty at its most dehumanising.”

Caritas aid operations are planning to ramp up across the country with hunger likely to increase after poor harvests. A Caritas survey in the areas it works in October found 70 to 90 percent of households going hungry depending on the area and the rest on the brink of starving. At least 5.1 million people are facing starvation out of a population of 13 million people. Nearly 14,000 cases of Cholera have been reported. It’s unknown how people living with HIV and AIDS are surviving without either the necessary medicines or the necessary level of nutrition that is key to the effectiveness of anti-retroviral treatment.......

The international community must maintain the pressure on Zimbabwe for an end to this crisis. We must also prepare ourselves for the implosion of the country and the catastrophe that will mean in terms of human suffering across the region. Zimbabwe’s neighbours must address the xenophobia directed at Zimbabwean refugees in their own countries.....

Mugabe clings to power whilst the international community stands idly by.