UN Yawns as Zimbabwe Catastrophe Goes Unnoticed

When we mentioned people were reduced to eating housepets in Zimbabwe, it was scarcely noted. Now a member of the opposition party to Robert Mugabe's goons is saying the dire situation in the forlorn African nation is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

He's probably right, but human rights groups, the UN and Hollyweird actors are busy elsewhere. They just don't like criticizing their fellow travelers.

Zimbabwe humanitarian crisis is world's worst-MDC

The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has become the world's worst but is still largely ignored by the international community, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Monday.

David Coltart, one of Zimbabwe's leading white politicians and member of parliament for a mainly black constituency, said the crisis in the former British colony had far outgrown the ability of any single nation to tackle.

He accused United Nations food and health agencies of a gross dereliction of duty in keeping silent on the issue.

"Zimbabwe is the world's worst humanitarian crisis -- but no one is talking about it in public," he told Reuters on a visit to London. "It is absolutely catastrophic. The U.N. must act.

"Not only are people starving to death every day, but the collapse of the economy is starting to destabilise the region."

Inflation in the country once known as the breadbasket of Africa is running at around 4,500 percent, unemployment is at 80 percent and price controls have stripped supermarket shelves bare.

Even staple foods like bread and maize meal are virtually impossible to get hold of and people have been reduced to scavenging.

President Robert Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, blames the economic disaster on meddling by outside countries, including former colonial power Britain.

Of course Mugabe blames everyone else. When was the last time a Communist admitted fault of his own?

"What we need is a massive humanitarian relief effort. Mugabe is deliberately using food as a weapon," said Coltart, who is secretary for legal affairs for a faction of the MDC.

"The trouble is that on the surface everything is quiet -- it is in the hospitals and in the morgues that you see the truth," he added.