Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Report — Of Stuffed ballots and Empty Stomachs food aid at the Grain Marketing Depots. Some of these reports include the following, which are taken from Zimonline101: 1. At Watsomba rural business centre in the eastern Manicaland province, reporters said they heard war veterans tell all known MDC supporters to leave a queue of people waiting to buy maize saying they would not be allowed to purchase the staple food because they voted for the opposition party. “We know all the MDC supporters here so don’t bother standing in the queue because we will flush you out. Some of you are buying ZANU(PF) cards to get food but you voted for the MDC. There will be no grain for you”, one of the war veterans said to villagers who had gathered at the depot to buy maize. A senior official at the depot later explained how the war veterans and youth militias had taken over distribution of maize soon after the March election. Villagers from Manicaland and other parts of the country such as Mashonaland West province and the southern Matabeleland region interviewed by reporters this week, said they were being prevented from buying maize from the GMB if suspected of having voted for the MDC. “Those being denied food are mostly people who were known to be MDC supporters or those like myself who were campaigning for MDC candidates in the last election”, a villager from Hurungwe West constituency in Mashonaland West province said. 2. In Bulawayo in Matabeleland, Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube said he has received reports from the church community that ruling party cadres had taken over food distribution from Government workers. Ncube said: “Starving women with children on their backs came to me crying because they had been denied food on the basis that they were MDC supporters. Before the election, it was food for votes and now the same food is being used as retribution against those who sympathise with the opposition. Now it is clear why Mugabe doesn’t want food donors here. He wants to use food to reward his supporters and starve to death opposition members. Anyone in his right senses would not refuse to have his people fed especially when he can’t feed them himself”. 3. In Gwanda, it is alleged that Deputy Foreign Minister and ruling ZANU(PF) Member of Parliament for Gwanda constituency, Abednico Ncube, ordered traditional leaders in the area to compile lists of people who voted for the opposition in the March 2005 election so they can be barred from receiving food aid. It is alleged that the Minister vowed to prevent the Grain Marketing Board, which provides cheaper priced maize to hungry villagers, from distributing the key staple in the targeted areas until headmen and their subjects say who among them voted for the opposition. It is further alleged that ZANU(PF) officials deployed 101 Zimonline 13 and 18 April 2005. 40