Green | October 17, 2008 | 13 comments

Water wars hit rural Zimbabwe

source: http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/2008/10/water-wars-hit-rural-zimbabwe.html

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JanforGore
There is increasing competition for water due to a combination of numerous environmental and political factors, including climate change, poor local planning and lack of adequate financial and material resources to bring running water to poor communities.

In rural Zimbabwe, lack of clean water has become a reality for many communities, in addition to other hardships, such as food shortages, insufficient health services and lack of sanitation.

Poor rains and government’s failure to provide adequate resources to reduce water scarcity -- including skilled water experts, fuel for field technicians to reach remote areas, drilling machines to make boreholes and water purification chemicals -- have worsened water woes.

After president Robert Mugabe embarked on a violent land reform programme, expropriating white-owned commercial farms in 2000, new farm owners have done little to maintain the infrastructure and facilities they inherited when taking over farms, including water systems and irrigation dams.

According to Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a unit set up by the Commercial Farmers of Zimbabwe (CFZ), an organisation that represents the legal interests of dispossessed farmers, wells have dried up throughout the country and no efforts have been made to drill more boreholes to provide water to both humans and livestock.

This is particularly significant since such infrastructure used to provide water for the surrounding communities as well as the farms.

Plumtree

For one rural community, buried deep in the tropical forests between two southern African countries, Zimbabwe and Botswana, the water plight has been particularly harsh when their main water source, a river running between the two countries, almost dried up.

In Plumtree, a poor, drought-prone rural community located about 160 kilometres southwest of Zimbabwe‚s second largest city, Bulawayo, a hostile fight has broken out between neighbouring communities around access to the few remaining water sources.

The Ramakgoebana River has become a major source of conflict for villagers from both sides of the border, Thabiso Mkwena, a 36-year-old man who lives in Tshitshi, near Plumtree, told IPS. "This is a dry area and we have to walk for many kilometres to the fast-drying river. This has led to disputes with villagers from the other side of the river who are accusing us of finishing the water," said Mkwena.

He said residents from the Botswana side of the river have claimed parts of the river as their own, threatening those from the Zimbabwean side with assault if they come to fetch water.

What has heightened tensions even further, Mkwena explained, is that out of desperation, villagers have started to bring their livestock to drink from the river too, as there is no alternative water source for animals.

"The Batswana say we must not bring our livestock here, but we cannot let our cattle die in this heat," Mkwena said.

Letting livestock drink from the same water source as humans has exposed locals to a number of water-borne diseases. Earlier this year, medical staff at the public hospital in Plumtree reported an outbreak of diarrhoea caused by contaminated drinking water.

Above from original link:

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=44294
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13 comments // Water wars hit rural Zimbabwe

  • FazeB
    • 0
      FazeB  

    • When one's throat becomes so parched that an attempt to swallow is an effort and is accompanied by pain, that will truly be an introduction to thirst....

    • 3 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • The important point to remember here is that this isn't only happening in Zimbabwe... it is happening in the US as well as many other places around the globe, though not on the same scale everywhere. We are nevertheless not much different regarding the rich hoarding while the poor suffer. Proving it matters not your skin color, your location, or your politics. It is human nature that we need to change... a task I fear may just be too hard for us to accomplish and too late to even attempt. So many in the US feel that these kinds of stories don't mean anything because the people in them who are suffering are a world away, the wrong skin color, or just too poor to give a damn about. And that crosses political distinction and race here as well.

      Climate change will then be the catastrophe that defines the true character of humanity. You are and will see all of the ugliness of it come out as well as hopefully the benevolence... which one will win out in the end is also up to us. Benevolence on the part of governments here or across the world however, does not seem to be a priority and that is what the people will have to focus on in changing it. In no uncertain terms people will need to come together and kick out corrupted officials who even in times of grave need and despair think only of themselves. Our retiscence as a world community on the whole to stand up to that is only sealing our own fate.

    • 3 years ago
  • CedricaBaez
    • 0
      CedricaBaez  

    • wow; how sad is that?! you never realize what an impact water has on your life, or how much you need it, until its gone! what a bummer!!

    • 3 years ago
  • krush_productions
  • neutralmilkhotel
  • JanforGore
  • Yoshi1
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • csmonut: Agreed. Education is part of the solution, but it also includes access. This I believe is one of the chief causes of the current food crisis. Not exactly the lack of food, but the access to it afforded to those who need it. Republicans like to blame others for initiating "class warfare," yet their foreign policies do exactly that.

    • 3 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • Yoshi1
    • 0
      Yoshi1  

    • I don't know how much help from outside forces Robert Mugabe would be willing to accept to help those living in Zimbabwe. Hopefully he will allow some aid in to help restore the infrastructure and provide temporary relief. It would also be nice if Mugabe gave up power as well, but I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon.

    • 3 years ago
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  

    • Not to make light of the situation, but I know a few of the white farmers who were run off their land and I know of what was done to the land in the aftermath of them being run off.
      Many people were employed by the white farmers and when they seized the land, they let it rot, they burned thousands of acres of land that was tilled and planted, they killed hundreds of cattle and other farm animals, they even killed off many native animals that were on a game preserve that was used, not for hunting, but for photographers and other tourists.
      Everything they needed to take care of these farms, they seized. The entire infrastructure was there, it just needed to be maintained. Why they did not maintain it is beyond my comprehension.
      Granted, many of the people that are starving and in need of help are not the people that caused the problems and it is terrible that they are paying for it.
      Perhaps education on how to compete in a global market, and how to buy and sell goods would be a better mechanism to put in place, rather than the giving of anything.
      Of course a corrupt government isn't helping the situation.

    • 3 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • Image

    • Humanitarian Crisis In Zimbabwe

      We can help by doing what we can to help organizations like Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Water Partners International, and other NGOS that are respected organizations that bring resources to these regions. However, just throwing money at the problem is not the silver bullet. People need opportunity and a chance to take control of their own lives with the tools they need to make their communities thrive. To be able to have their own water systems to grow their own food and to be free of corrupt governments looking only to sell off their land and their water to multi nationals for profit.

    • 3 years ago
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