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Plunging into the abyss 1st January 2006 MASVINGO, Zimbabwe - The metallic snakes of vehicles that stretched out of gas stations during the regular fuel crunches and came to symbolize the country's decline have disappeared. There is no gas being sold legally anywhere in Zimbabwe, and has not been any for more than two months. The government has run out of foreign currency needed to import fuel, and of ideas on how to revive the crumbling economy. Unemployment tops 70 percent. Inflation in November reached 502 percent. A U.S. dollar, which fetched $8 per Zim, or Zimbabwe dollar, a decade ago, is now worth $79,042 in Zimbabwe dollars. The queues that remain - for bread, for maize meal, for sugar - show just how far this southern African country, once regarded as the breadbasket for the region, has sunk. To drive through Zimbabwe - only possible with numerous cans of black market gas in the trunk - is to witness a nation gripped in a fierce malaise: Women wait forlornly for public transport, young men huddle on street corners, knowing there is no way to make money. "Things have never been this bad before," said Innocent Maregere, 36, who owns a food and liquor store in the small southern town of Mhandamabwe and whose business has been plagued by stock shortages and spiralling prices. "Obviously, we blame the government. Who else is to blame?" But there has been no political fallout for President Robert Mugabe, whose controversial program to forcibly redistribute land from white farmers to black peasants precipitated the economic crisis. Since 2000, more than 4,000 white-owned commercial farms have been seized - only a few hundred remain - and gross domestic product has almost halved to $4.3 billion. During parliamentary elections in March - discredited as fraudulent by European Union and U.S. observers - the ruling Zanu-PF party achieved a two-thirds majority, enabling it to pass laws to clamp down on dissent. A strong performance in elections for the new senate on Nov. 26, which were partially boycotted by the main opposition party, further entrenched Zanu's hold on the government. Indeed, Mugabe, 81 and in his 26th year as president, is as defiant as ever. He said last month that his party, which began as an independence movement, was growing "bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger." His confidence has been buoyed by in-fighting in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), sparked by the decision of its leader, Morgan Tsvangarai, to boycott senate elections. David Coltart, the MDC's head of justice and legal affairs, said the wrangling had deepened the gloom in the country by fraying the "residual hope that at least there was an alternate force in the country. The MDC is in deep trouble; there is no denying that," he said. Ordinary Zimbabweans are in deep trouble too, since the economy seems destined to plunge further. With the collapse of the agricultural sector, there is little to export and thus little prospect of solving the foreign currency crisis. Mugabe's appeals for loans from "friendly" countries such as South Africa and China so far have been spurned. Even people with jobs are finding life increasingly difficult. The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said recently that a family of six needs the equivalent of $147 U.S. dollars a month to get by. Police, teachers and nurses typically earn monthly salaries of $40. Others earn even less. Richard Mutami, 32, a security guard near Chivu, south of Harare, makes $11 a month. In a country with no free education, he can no longer afford to pay school fees for his two children. "Our money is so low and things are just getting worse," he said. "Next year, I will have to try to go to South Africa to find work." More than 3 million countrywide are expected to require food aid in the coming months - a result of the crippling drought and ruinous economic policies. In the southern Masvingo province, one of the worst-affected areas, Samson Gwaruya, 27, a subsistence farmer, said: "If it stays like this, people are going to have to eat roots and leaves." Until now, there has been no evidence Zimbabweans are planning a "people's revolution" like the one in Ukraine in 2004. Yet Mugabe knows his people's patience is not infinite and has put in place plans to ensure dissent is quickly quashed. A law passed recently allows authorities to confiscate the travel documents of anyone deemed to be anti-government. In recent weeks, the law was used to seize the passports of a prominent newspaper publisher, a senior MDC official and a top trade unionist. Within his own party, Mugabe has consolidated power within a faction headed by Gen. Solomon Mujuru, the former head of the army, and his wife, Joyce Mujuru, a former freedom fighter whom Mugabe appointed vice president last year. The armed forces have been organized around the Joint Operation Command, which includes the chiefs of the army, police and Central Intelligence Organization. The Command is playing an increasing role in government decisions - from hatching plans for the army to take over farming on unproductive land to overseeing the brutal Operation Clear Out Filth, which left 700,000 people homeless, without work or both. "Never before in Zimbabwe has the role of the military been so great," said Peter Kagwanja, Southern Africa project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, based in Pretoria. "And never before has the state felt so insecure." But given the weak opposition and powerful state security apparatus, analysts say Mugabe should be able to retain power until 2008 - if he can keep his soldiers fed and paid - when he is expected to hand over the reins to Joyce Mujuru. By then, said Tony Hawkins, a Harare-based economist, "We will be a non-country like Myanmar or something. Nobody in the international community seems to care about Zimbabwe anymore. Everyone is just watching it fold." Newsday -
BY XAN RICE SPECIAL TO NEWSDAY |