When Prices soar and hopes plunge
In Zimbabwe, a disaster of one man's making
Official government figures in May put the nation's annual inflation rate at 1,042.9 percent, though private economists say the real figure is close to 2,000 percent, with shoppers forced to carry bags of freshly printed currency to pay for even the smallest purchases. In contrast, all of Zimbabwe's neighbors--South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique--are registering impressive economic growth as a result of free-market policies.
The nation's economic collapse has been accompanied by social decline. The World Health Organization puts life expectancy for Zimbabwean women at 34, the lowest in the world. Some 3,000 people a week die of AIDS-related illnesses despite a recent decline in the spread of the HIV virus. As many as 3.5 million Zimbabweans, many former farm laborers, have given up hope and fled to South Africa, Botswana, and Britain. "Zimbabwe is heading toward a catastrophe," says Bulawayo Mayor Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube. "We urgently need a leader to come out from the rubble."
Mugabe, however, shows no sign of leaving soon. In fact, there is speculation he plans to postpone the scheduled 2008 presidential election so he can remain in power until 2010, when presidential and parliamentary elections would be held concurrently. What may happen after Mugabe finally goes is anybody's guess. Many observers predict a fierce internal struggle within the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Party that could spill into violence. The political class is not providing much of an alternative. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change recently split into two rival factions and is unable to offer any resistance to the politics of the government.
The regime finds itself increasingly isolated. Mugabe has called for "bridge building" with the outside world, but apart from China, Malawi, and Cuba, there are few takers. "Absent the recognition on the part of the government that it needs to make some hard choices and undertake a profound transformation, bridge building is just another diplomatic gambit," says the outspoken U.S. ambassador, Christopher Dell.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe tumbles ever more deeply into a police state. Students are beaten, arrested, and jailed for complaining about a 300 percent rise in school fees or for taking down Mugabe's portrait from a schoolroom. Radio and television stations are under tight government control. Although a few independent newspapers continue to publish, the widely circulated opposition Daily News has been shut since 2003. The bureaucracy has been militarized, with retired high-ranking officers now heading ministries, minding the activities of the Central Bank, and sitting as judges. "People are being held, imprisoned by Mugabe's forces, Mugabe's laws. They are harassed, fearful; they are not free to talk," says Bulawayo Archbishop Pius Ncube, one of the regime's most ardent critics and himself a frequent target of government bullying.
Yet most of the victims, like Fredy Mwachipa, are quiet bystanders. A year ago, police showed up in Mwachipa's poor district on the outskirts of Harare and ordered him and his neighbors to destroy their homes. It was part of the government's declared urban cleanup campaign, called Operation Murambatsvina ("Drive Out Filth"), which left at least 700,000 people without homes and businesses. The real priority was to disperse disaffected slum dwellers before they could coalesce into a threat to Mugabe's rule. "The police came in trucks, went into the houses, and told everyone to get out," Mwachipa explains, sitting inside the wood and plastic sheeting structure donated by a local charity that is his new home. "They said we must take everything out and destroy the house. 'You are no longer living here,'they said."
Mwachipa and his wife and four children, as well as hundreds of neighbors, were trucked to a farm. He and most of the others were allowed to return one month later after producing land deeds proving they owned their homes. By then, however, the police had used picks and shovels to finish the work of destroying the dwellings. "We fault the president," Mwachipa, a night watchman, says softly. "He is not ruling the country the way he is supposed to." On that, there is no question.
advertisement
