Timothy Stamps
Encyclopedia
Timothy Stamps is a Zimbabwe
an political figure who served as Minister of Health from 1986 to 2002. For most of this period, he was the only white member of the government.
in 1936. After qualifying as a doctor in the UK he went out to colonial Rhodesia
in 1962 to join its Public Health Service. He has spent the rest of his life in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. He was appointed as Deputy Medical Officer for the municipality of Salisbury
in 1968 and was promoted to Chief Medical Officer in 1970. He was dismissed from this last post in 1974, allegedly for trying to switch the emphasis in healthcare provision slightly more towards the black community. At that time, whites comprised no more than 15% of the population of Salisbury but at least 60% of municipal spending on social services in the city was directed towards them.
After his dismissal, Stamps worked as a doctor in a number of community projects while becoming increasingly interested in development and political activities. He became Chairman of the 'Freedom from Hunger' campaign (a UN sponsored organisation) in Rhodesia.
At the time of Zimbabwe’s independence, an insurance funded healthcare system provided a first world provision for most whites. By contrast, most blacks enjoyed only the most basic of medical services. The only access to healthcare for blacks in rural areas was through mission station clinics or clinics provided by white farmers for workers and their families.
In the early 1980s, Stamps was active in raising finance from overseas sources (government, NGO and international organisations) to fund the construction of clinics and community hospitals in rural areas. The Zimbabwe government also sought to expand healthcare facilities and Stamps worked closely with the Ministry of Health on a number of projects. One thing Stamps found with these early projects was this it was less difficult to raise funds to cover the capital construction cost of a project than it was to cover its continuing revenue costs.
He also took an interest in wider social and economic problems facing Zimbabwe. The land tenure system which had been installed during the Rhodesian state had resulted in a situation in which most of the farming land in the country was either (a) individually titled and white owned, or (b) collectively owned for use by African tribes. Both of these forms of tenure presented problems that needed to be urgently addressed. Although most Zimbabweans agreed on the need for reform in general terms, conservative elements (including both white farmers and African tribal chiefs) would put up stubborn resistance to specific proposals for reform.
Stamps sought to develop a new model for land ownership and usage. In 1982 he acquired a formerly white owned dairy farm near Harare for development as a co-operative. Funded by a $2m grant from the German
charity AgroAction, he was able to settle 2,000 people at this farm. Stamps claimed that Vuti farm became self-funding after eight years.
. Although he polled only about a third of the vote in a straight fight, this was the highest vote for any non-Rhodesian Front candidate. Along with a number of the white elite in the post-independence period, Stamps subsequently joined ZANU-PF. Being one of only a small number of party members with healthcare management experience, Stamps' advice and services were eagerly sought. He became a ZANU MP at the 1985 general election and in 1986 was appointed as Minister of Health and Child Welfare – a position he held until 2002.
During his early years as a Minister, he promoted the development of community healthcare using the slogan "Health for All by the Year 2000".
He oversaw a substantial expansion of the Zimbabwean healthcare and public health systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This expansion attracted a great deal of favourable attention both at home and abroad. The Zimbabwe experience was often held up as an example for other developing countries. Stamps took a lot of the credit for this and was frequently asked to address international conferences.
His credibility in Zimbabwe was such that he could speak out on various matters that other politicians would exercise caution over. For example, his predecessor as Health Minister had dismissed the AIDS
epidemic as a fiction invented by the media in order to cause panic.
"Ministers have tended to shy away from the issue because it is seen as contaminated. AIDS activity by government is not seen as politically beneficial, since it may offend conservative religious and traditional groups and somehow attracts a stigma. There are no votes in talking about AIDS. Only lost votes."
Stamps was also critical of police conduct in attempting to maintain public order, notably when measures to quell disorder at an international football match in 2000 ended up leaving eleven people dead.
He also drew attention to “Project Coast
”, the name given to chemical and biological warfare programmes run by South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Project Coast included attempts to develop genetically engineered diseases and toxins that would affect blacks more than whites. The idea being to apply treatments to a population in order to correct any ethnic imbalance. Stamps' suggestion that various epidemics in Rhodesia in the 1970s (notably, an anthrax epidemic in 1978) may have been the result of a biological attack was widely disbelieved. A 'Southern African Research and Documentation Centre' report has claimed a unnamed former senior member of the Rhodesian security forces, and Colonel Lionel Dyke, a Mugabe ally who participated in the Gukurahundi
, stated that anthrax and cholera spores (supplied by the SADF) were deliberately spread in the TTLs during the closing stages of the Bush War.
Events in the late 1990s pushed Zimbabwe into economic recession. This made it difficult to sustain many of the new healthcare facilities and services that had been constructed in earlier years. The government was struggling with a large budget deficit and the external bodies that had provided funding for building and equipment costs in the past seemed reluctant to fund the continuing operation of the associated facilities. Bad publicity concerning corruption, cronyism and incompetence in Zimbabwe did not help in this regard. The salaries paid to doctors and nurses were eroded by inflation, and many key personnel emigrated. There were also a series of damaging strikes that attracted unfavourable attention at home and abroad. Stamps found himself struggling to prevent the collapse of the system he had built up, and was reported to have lost his temper with media and union representatives on several occasions.
During most of his time as Health Minister, Stamps was the only white member of the government. As such, he was often called upon to present the government's position on various matters which were outside his normal brief. For example, he frequently defended the government's policy on land reforms
in interviews with western journalists. This made him a hate figure to many of his fellow Zimbabwean whites. His popularity among both the members of ZANU-PF and the wider population declined as a result of problems in the healthcare system. However, Stamps remained well regarded by President Mugabe
.
During the near breakdown in relations between whites in Zimbabwe
and the ZANU-PF government around the time of the 2000 election, Stamps attempted to exercise some moderating influence on the situation:
"Whites are the face of the problem, but the causes go deeper than that. In general, our race relations are good - certainly much better than those of our neighbour, South Africa
. We have the opportunity to improve on the solid black/white relationship that has been built over the past 20 years. It is the extremists who are creating divisions."
Stamps actively campaigned for ZANU-PF in the 2000 election and was returned to the House of Assembly
as a non-constituency MP
. He carried on as Health Minister until March 2002, but was becoming increasingly exhausted. Late in 2001, he suffered a stroke. He was replaced as Health Minister by his deputy, David Parirenyatwa
, in August 2002; due to Stamps' illness, Parirenyatwa had already been effectively running the ministry. Since leaving the government, Stamps has acted as adviser on health matters to the Office of the President.
As a footnote to his political career, in July 2002 Stamps was one of 92 Zimbabweans subject to EU "smart sanctions" intended to express disapproval of various Zimbabwe government policies. Stamps was banned from the EU and access to assets he owned in the EU was frozen. Many observers found the EU's treatment of Dr Stamps to be curious, given that by July 2002 he was retired from politics and a semi-invalid. Also, he had never been implicated in human rights abuses, anti-democratic acts, corruption or any other form of wrongdoing.
In February 2008, as Health Adviser in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Stamps attended President Mugabe's 84th birthday celebrations with several other high profile Zanu-PF party members.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
an political figure who served as Minister of Health from 1986 to 2002. For most of this period, he was the only white member of the government.
Early life and career
Stamps was born in WalesWales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
in 1936. After qualifying as a doctor in the UK he went out to colonial Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
in 1962 to join its Public Health Service. He has spent the rest of his life in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. He was appointed as Deputy Medical Officer for the municipality of Salisbury
Harare
Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
in 1968 and was promoted to Chief Medical Officer in 1970. He was dismissed from this last post in 1974, allegedly for trying to switch the emphasis in healthcare provision slightly more towards the black community. At that time, whites comprised no more than 15% of the population of Salisbury but at least 60% of municipal spending on social services in the city was directed towards them.
After his dismissal, Stamps worked as a doctor in a number of community projects while becoming increasingly interested in development and political activities. He became Chairman of the 'Freedom from Hunger' campaign (a UN sponsored organisation) in Rhodesia.
At the time of Zimbabwe’s independence, an insurance funded healthcare system provided a first world provision for most whites. By contrast, most blacks enjoyed only the most basic of medical services. The only access to healthcare for blacks in rural areas was through mission station clinics or clinics provided by white farmers for workers and their families.
In the early 1980s, Stamps was active in raising finance from overseas sources (government, NGO and international organisations) to fund the construction of clinics and community hospitals in rural areas. The Zimbabwe government also sought to expand healthcare facilities and Stamps worked closely with the Ministry of Health on a number of projects. One thing Stamps found with these early projects was this it was less difficult to raise funds to cover the capital construction cost of a project than it was to cover its continuing revenue costs.
He also took an interest in wider social and economic problems facing Zimbabwe. The land tenure system which had been installed during the Rhodesian state had resulted in a situation in which most of the farming land in the country was either (a) individually titled and white owned, or (b) collectively owned for use by African tribes. Both of these forms of tenure presented problems that needed to be urgently addressed. Although most Zimbabweans agreed on the need for reform in general terms, conservative elements (including both white farmers and African tribal chiefs) would put up stubborn resistance to specific proposals for reform.
Stamps sought to develop a new model for land ownership and usage. In 1982 he acquired a formerly white owned dairy farm near Harare for development as a co-operative. Funded by a $2m grant from the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
charity AgroAction, he was able to settle 2,000 people at this farm. Stamps claimed that Vuti farm became self-funding after eight years.
Political career
In the 1980 election Stamps fought the white roll Kopje constituency as an Independent candidate against the Rhodesian FrontRhodesian Front
The Rhodesian Front was a political party in Southern Rhodesia when the country was under white minority rule. Led first by Winston Field, and, from 1964, by Ian Smith, the Rhodesian Front was the successor to the Dominion Party, which was the main opposition party in Southern Rhodesia during the...
. Although he polled only about a third of the vote in a straight fight, this was the highest vote for any non-Rhodesian Front candidate. Along with a number of the white elite in the post-independence period, Stamps subsequently joined ZANU-PF. Being one of only a small number of party members with healthcare management experience, Stamps' advice and services were eagerly sought. He became a ZANU MP at the 1985 general election and in 1986 was appointed as Minister of Health and Child Welfare – a position he held until 2002.
During his early years as a Minister, he promoted the development of community healthcare using the slogan "Health for All by the Year 2000".
He oversaw a substantial expansion of the Zimbabwean healthcare and public health systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This expansion attracted a great deal of favourable attention both at home and abroad. The Zimbabwe experience was often held up as an example for other developing countries. Stamps took a lot of the credit for this and was frequently asked to address international conferences.
His credibility in Zimbabwe was such that he could speak out on various matters that other politicians would exercise caution over. For example, his predecessor as Health Minister had dismissed the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic as a fiction invented by the media in order to cause panic.
"Ministers have tended to shy away from the issue because it is seen as contaminated. AIDS activity by government is not seen as politically beneficial, since it may offend conservative religious and traditional groups and somehow attracts a stigma. There are no votes in talking about AIDS. Only lost votes."
- Stamps, speaking in 1996
Stamps was also critical of police conduct in attempting to maintain public order, notably when measures to quell disorder at an international football match in 2000 ended up leaving eleven people dead.
He also drew attention to “Project Coast
Project Coast
Project Coast was a top-secret chemical and biological weapons program instituted by the South African government during the apartheid era. Project Coast was the successor to a limited post-war CBW program which mainly produced the lethal agents CX powder and mustard gas; as well as non-lethal...
”, the name given to chemical and biological warfare programmes run by South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Project Coast included attempts to develop genetically engineered diseases and toxins that would affect blacks more than whites. The idea being to apply treatments to a population in order to correct any ethnic imbalance. Stamps' suggestion that various epidemics in Rhodesia in the 1970s (notably, an anthrax epidemic in 1978) may have been the result of a biological attack was widely disbelieved. A 'Southern African Research and Documentation Centre' report has claimed a unnamed former senior member of the Rhodesian security forces, and Colonel Lionel Dyke, a Mugabe ally who participated in the Gukurahundi
Gukurahundi
The Gukurahundi refers to the suppression by Zimbabwe's 5th Brigade in the predominantly Ndebele regions of Zimbabwe most of whom were supporters of Joshua Nkomo. A few hundred disgruntled former ZIPRA combatants waged armed banditry against the civilians in Matabeleland, and destroyed government...
, stated that anthrax and cholera spores (supplied by the SADF) were deliberately spread in the TTLs during the closing stages of the Bush War.
Events in the late 1990s pushed Zimbabwe into economic recession. This made it difficult to sustain many of the new healthcare facilities and services that had been constructed in earlier years. The government was struggling with a large budget deficit and the external bodies that had provided funding for building and equipment costs in the past seemed reluctant to fund the continuing operation of the associated facilities. Bad publicity concerning corruption, cronyism and incompetence in Zimbabwe did not help in this regard. The salaries paid to doctors and nurses were eroded by inflation, and many key personnel emigrated. There were also a series of damaging strikes that attracted unfavourable attention at home and abroad. Stamps found himself struggling to prevent the collapse of the system he had built up, and was reported to have lost his temper with media and union representatives on several occasions.
During most of his time as Health Minister, Stamps was the only white member of the government. As such, he was often called upon to present the government's position on various matters which were outside his normal brief. For example, he frequently defended the government's policy on land reforms
Land reform in Zimbabwe
Land reform in Zimbabwe officially began in 1979 with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, an effort to more equitably distribute land between the historically disenfranchised blacks and the minority-whites who ruled Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1979...
in interviews with western journalists. This made him a hate figure to many of his fellow Zimbabwean whites. His popularity among both the members of ZANU-PF and the wider population declined as a result of problems in the healthcare system. However, Stamps remained well regarded by President Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
.
During the near breakdown in relations between whites in Zimbabwe
Whites in Zimbabwe
White Zimbabweans are people from the southern African country Zimbabwe who identify themselves as white...
and the ZANU-PF government around the time of the 2000 election, Stamps attempted to exercise some moderating influence on the situation:
"Whites are the face of the problem, but the causes go deeper than that. In general, our race relations are good - certainly much better than those of our neighbour, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. We have the opportunity to improve on the solid black/white relationship that has been built over the past 20 years. It is the extremists who are creating divisions."
- Stamps, quoted from 2000 interview with The Guardian
Stamps actively campaigned for ZANU-PF in the 2000 election and was returned to the House of Assembly
House of Assembly of Zimbabwe
The House of Assembly of Zimbabwe is the lower chamber of the country's bicameral Parliament. It was the unicameral legislative body from 1989 until late November 2005, when the Senate was re-introduced....
as a non-constituency MP
Parliament of Zimbabwe
The Parliament of Zimbabwe consists of two chambers:*The Senate *The House of Assembly...
. He carried on as Health Minister until March 2002, but was becoming increasingly exhausted. Late in 2001, he suffered a stroke. He was replaced as Health Minister by his deputy, David Parirenyatwa
David Parirenyatwa
Doctor David Parirenyatwa is a Zimbabwean politician and former Minister of Health and Child Welfare.Parirenyatwa served as Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare until he was appointed as Minister of Health and Child Welfare in August 2002...
, in August 2002; due to Stamps' illness, Parirenyatwa had already been effectively running the ministry. Since leaving the government, Stamps has acted as adviser on health matters to the Office of the President.
As a footnote to his political career, in July 2002 Stamps was one of 92 Zimbabweans subject to EU "smart sanctions" intended to express disapproval of various Zimbabwe government policies. Stamps was banned from the EU and access to assets he owned in the EU was frozen. Many observers found the EU's treatment of Dr Stamps to be curious, given that by July 2002 he was retired from politics and a semi-invalid. Also, he had never been implicated in human rights abuses, anti-democratic acts, corruption or any other form of wrongdoing.
In February 2008, as Health Adviser in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Stamps attended President Mugabe's 84th birthday celebrations with several other high profile Zanu-PF party members.