Zimbabwe Update -- A Crisis Builds

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Last week the International Monetary Fund issued a report on the condition of Zimbabwe's economy that catalogued the terrible deprivation that the unfortunate nation's peoples have suffered as a result of President Mad Bobby Mugabe's insane economic policies. [here, follow the links]

Here's what the IMF sees in Zimbabwe's future:

IMF forecasts laid bare the economic crisis gripping a country once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa.

Zimbabwe's gross domestic product is expected to contract by about seven percent this year owing to "difficulties in agriculture, rising inflation, and foreign exchange shortages, particularly for fuel imports".

The country's GDP already shrank by about four percent last year and 10,5% in 2003, the IMF said.

Inflation hit a peak of 623% in January 2004 before "stabilising" around 130% in early 2005 and then surging again to 254% in July, it said.

"The widening fiscal deficit and quasi-fiscal activities would contribute to money growth, pushing inflation to over 400% by end-2005," the IMF said.

It said the Mugabe government's "Operation Restore Order", a programme of slum clearances which the opposition says was a political ploy to drive away its supporters, has left at least 700 000 people homeless or destitute.

"Food security is an urgent issue, given the sharp fall in agricultural production," the IMF also said.

Since 2000, Zimbabwe has seized about 4 000 white-owned farms and redistributed them to landless blacks under a land reform programme which it says is aimed at redressing colonial injustices.

Read it here.

Mugabe's response to the IMF report was anything but helpful. He denied that there was a crisis, attributed food shortages to drought and the policies of Western governments, and urged other African countries to emulate his racist/marxist reforms.

Meanwhile evictions of white famers continued as corrupt black officials took over property for themselves and their families. [here]

And starvation continued to spread among the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons created by Mugabe's campaign to eliminate his political opposition and the urban poor. [here]

In the catalogue of Zimbabwe's economic woes, only one matters to Mugabe. Starvation he can tolerate, because it is a useful way of eliminating his political foes. Protesters can be, and are, jailed [here]. International condemnation can be deflected through simple racist demagoguery. But, inflation hits hard at his base of support -- the urban elites and the military.

All Africa reports:

THE Zimbabwean army and air force have been hit by protests over the government’s failure to increase their salaries as well as chronic food shortages at their barracks.

Military sources said this week soldiers were increasingly unsettled by government’s refusal to increase their salaries and provide adequate food supplies to the 40000-strong army.

Disgruntled armed forces pose a serious threat to President Robert Mugabe’s regime, which depends on the state security apparatus — the army, the air force and the intelligence service — for its survival.

Mugabe last week urged the armed forces to remain vigilant to deal with what he termed a “vicious imperialist onslaught”.

Read it here [also here].

And trouble is beginning to emerge on another front. The urban poor, whose neighborhoods were systematically destroyed in recent months, are beginning, if only sporadically, to fight back. Mugabe is continuing his demolition policies that have already made 700,000 people homeless, but there are report of "running street battles" as residents of the city resist the destruction of their homes and shops. [here]

Things seem to be heading for a showdown in the near future. Mugabe has agreed to retire in 2008, but he may not last for long, especially if he loses the loyalty of the army. The only problem is, the old monster's likely successor, VP Joice Muburu, may be even worse. Her revolutionary nickname is "Spill Blood". [here]

The Widening Crisis

Der Spiegel has a terrific piece today on the failure of African leaders to bring Mugabe to account for the horrors he has unleashed on his people.Many western analysts, especially in Britain and the US, have called upon the African Union, or more specifically South Africa, to take action to curb Mugabe's "reforms" that are destroying his people. But these calls have fallen, for the most part, on deaf ears. Der Spiegel explains why.

Here's the bad news:

Africans, of all people, have been surprisingly willing to accept the dictator in Harare and his affectations. Hardly any African politician ever so much as voices a word of criticism about Mugabe. In March, when Mugabe held a charade-like parliamentary election in which his ZANU-PF walked away with a proud two-thirds majority, the African Union praised the farce as "free and credible" -- despite the fact that the results of the campaign's dirty tactics were on full display in Harare's hospitals: hundreds of wounded, victims of Mugabe's gangs of thugs.

The 13 representatives of the Southern African Development Community, a group representing the countries of southern Africa, came to the same odd conclusion -- at a time when the rest of the world had long since declared the election a fraud. "The procedure was credible," said South African Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, "and it reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people."

On another front, no one seems to want to say anything negative about Mugabe's new policy of razing slums, with the African Union saying that it will not become involved in Zimbabwe's "internal affairs." In an editorial, the South African weekly newspaper, Mail and Guardian, accuses Mugabe's critics of "hypocrisy" and former colonial power Great Britain of "demonizing President Robert Mugabe." After all, says the paper, millions of people are resettled somewhere in the world every year to "make room for tourists, dams, roads and airports."

When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Mugabe's realm an "outpost of tyranny," the statement prompted South African President Thabo Mbeki to say that Rice's tone was damaging to South Africa's "silent diplomacy" with Zimbabwe. What's wrong with Africa's leaders, with the next generation that proclaimed an "African renaissance" and promised "good governance," a completely new style of leadership? At times it even seems that Mbeki's supposedly quiet democracy is really nothing but a cover for clandestine approval of the madman, who has called himself a "modern-day Hitler."

The old boy's network

Mbeki and Mugabe are old friends. In the 1980s, Zimbabwe served as a safe haven for leftist guerillas, especially South Africans and Namibians fighting the apartheid system. Ethiopia's former Marxist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, who allowed about a million Ethiopians to starve to death from 1984 to 1985, remains in exile in "Comrade Bob's" country.

Africans, it seems, are sticking together and displaying solidarity. When Mugabe recently revealed that his government was having financial difficulties, the South African government promptly came to his aid and promised Mugabe a half-billion dollars in credit, although the loan offer came with the stipulation that Mugabe make democratic concessions to Zimbabweans. This puts Pretoria in the same league with Beijing, which signed a trade agreement with Mugabe in July. In return, the Chinese were awarded rights to exploit some of the ailing country's mineral resources.

Even beyond political circles, Robert Mugabe also appears to enjoy wide-spread popularity on the African continent. When the monthly magazine New African had its readers vote for the "100 greatest Africans" last year, the despot from Harare managed a respectable third-place finish, topped only by über-father Nelson Mandela and Ghanaian independence hero Kwame Nkrumah. "Unlike some of his counterparts," writes one reader, in seeking to explain a poll outcome that is surprising for Europeans, Mugabe has avoided "becoming a neo-colonial puppet." A columnist for the paper wrote that "African nationalism is on the way to achieving a true victory."

Years ago, Namibia's first president and clandestine ruler, Sam Nujoma, called upon his counterparts to "unite and support Zimbabwe," adding that "the imperialists may not get back our continent." Nujoma also offered military support: "The colonial powers should know that Namibian forces will be in Zimbabwe within 24 hours, should they invade the country."

Now here's the really bad news -- Mugabe's poison is spreading widely.

Whenever Mugabe's hateful speeches are broadcast on Zambian radio, white Zambian farmers' union president Guy Robinson knows what to expect. "Our phones ring off the hook for days," he says, "with agitated Zambians threatening us with violence and expropriation. A spark from this demagogue is enough to set off an explosive atmosphere here in neighboring Zambia."A similar mood has even taken hold in Kenya, where picturesquely painted Masai warriors are becoming more and more openly hostile to white landowners, even threatening to drive out "the British."

Whenever Mugabe gives his periodic hate speeches against whites, Nairobi daily newspaper The Standard is inundated with the letters of readers who write, for example, that the president in Harare is giving Africa "its pride back," or that it is important to know "that the colonialists are still exploiting the continent's raw materials."An equally unsettling situation is unfolding in Namibia, where the government just expropriated farmland from a white family for the first time. Protestors recently marched down Windhoek's Independence Avenue carrying a banner which read: "Kill all Whites."

Read the whole thing here.

Racism, Marxism, anti-colonialism, and a marked disregard for human rights and dignity -- these are the touchstones of Mugabe's, and increasingly other Southern African countries', policies. A sickness is spreading throughout the region -- a sickness of the mind and of society -- and it's consequences promise to be every bit as destructive as AIDS, Malaria, or any of the other horrors upon which so much international attention has been lavished.

Stay tuned....

I have blogged this subject earlier here, [follow the links for earlier posts]. The situation has been worsening for some time, and few in the West seem to be paying attention.

UPDATE:

BBC reviews the situation with the Zimbabwean Army, noting that troops are being sent on leave because there is no food to feed them, but also states:

However, the military experts describe Zimbabwe's armed forces as professional, disciplined and loyal to President Robert Mugabe.

There is no suggestion at this stage of any widespread dissent within the ranks of the army.

Not yet, at any rate.

Read it here.

AND FURTHERMORE:

For more Zim information on the military situation follow Capt. Marlowe's links in the comments section below. He also posts links to opposition news and blog sites.

UPDATE:

Mugabe in his last years as president is moving to grab as much loot as possible for his supporters. NewZimbabwe reports:

ZIMBABWE has agreed to pay former political prisoners detained during the country's independence war a once-off gratuity and regular living benefits, the official Herald newspaper said on Saturday.

"Government has authorised the payment of a 6 million Zimbabwe dollar (US$231) gratuity and the provision of other benefits to every former political prisoner, detainee and restrictee as part of the state's fulfilment of its pledge to reward them for their contribution in the liberation struggle," the paper said, citing a government notice.

Note that exchange rate. 6 million Zimbabwean dollars equals $231, US currency.

Read it here.