By Jeremy Lovell LONDON, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe is being buried under a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions but the world is looking elsewhere, an opposition parliamentarian said on Monday. David Coltart, a white member of Zimbabwe's divided Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, said people were dying in droves due to a combination of very high numbers of AIDS cases, inflation running at 1,200 percent and widespread malnutrition. "We estimate that 3,500 people a week are dying due to the convergence of these three factors. Average life expectancy of a woman has dropped to just 34 years. The cemeteries are filled to overflowing," he told Reuters. "I am appalled how much Zimbabwe has fallen off Europe's radar screen," he said on a whirlwind visit to Europe. "I understand the preoccupations with Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, but our people are dying like flies and no one seems to notice." In June Coltart joined the faction of the MDC led by Arthur Mutambare, which broke away last November from the main party led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Coltart said the divided opposition was not helping Zimbabwe. "Divisions in the opposition have exacerbated the problem because we no longer have a coherent voice to speak about the atrocious situation," he said. But he was dubious about the chances of the MDC, the main opposition to Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF after 26 years in power, healing its rifts any time soon. Mugabe set out in 2000 on wholesale nationalisation of the white-dominated commercial farming sector, the backbone of the once-thriving agrarian economy of the former British colony of Rhodesia. But in the process food production and the economy has crashed, bringing with it widespread starvation. Coltart complained that in an effort to offset some of the worst effects of the economic meltdown, Mugabe was selling off state assets at bargain basement prices to China. "The Chinese are giving balance of payments support to a completely discredited regime," he said. "They are participating in a fire-sale. There are deals in the minerals and energy sectors but we don't know on what terms." "All we see in return is third rate shoes and clothes which are undermining our textile industry, and a few fourth rate roads which rapidly become impassable," he added. Mugabe justifies the land reform as reversing the legacy of colonisation and blames the economic disaster on outside meddling. Mugabe is due to stand down at presidential elections in 2008, but there has recently been speculation that to hang onto power a little longer he might move the date to 2010 on the pretext of making them coincide with parliamentary elections.
