President Robert Mugabe's government has closed all United Nations field offices in rural Zimbabwe that are distributing famine relief to starving communities.
The move threatens to disrupt the world body's attempts to avert massive starvation and is seen as another bid by the Mugabe regime to use the distribution of food to compel rural communities to support the ruling Zanu-PF party....
The government's use of food as a "political weapon" - by withholding famine relief from opposition areas and handing it out to ruling party supporters at polling stations during elections - has been comprehensively documented by humanitarian agencies...
Famine monitoring agencies say local grain stocks have almost run out.
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=221979