Zimbabwe’s Desperation

31^st March 2002

With inflation running at well over 100% and unemployment soaring, tens of thousands of Zimbabweans are fleeing southwards to South Africa in the hope of finding a better life.

It is a dangerous journey. Many people drown in the Limpopo river or are killed by hippos and crocodiles.

The rainy season is drawing to a close in the Limpopo valley. The water in the river is falling as the hard months of the dry season begin.

The sky is blue and cloudless. The sun shimmers off the white rocks.

On the South African side of the river runs a long electrified fence. It stretches for hundreds of miles both east and west along the border.

It was erected by the apartheid regime, but the ANC government of Thabo Mbeki still maintains this grim frontier.

Exodus

With Zimbabwe's economy in shreds, tens of thousands of refugees are coming south to look for jobs.

On a stretch of the river is a grove of tall, green-barked fever trees. They cast a cool shade over the banks.

A concrete weir has been built across the river. It forms a deep pool where the South African farmers draw water for their fields.

There is a gate in the electric fence here. Johannes is the man who maintains the pumps that draw the precious water. He has a key for the gate and lets me into the pump station.

The concrete weir runs straight across to the Zimbabwean bank. It would take a few minutes to walk through the low cascade of water across the border.

In the shade of the fever trees, Johannes introduces me to his friend Olbert.

We squat on our haunches in the clean white sand on the river bank. In the gentle way of Africa, we begin by talking of the rains and of the long drive from Johannesburg.

Contrast

Johannes is a South African citizen. He is in his mid-40s. He is proud of his job and the money it brings him. He is wearing a clean pressed shirt, a baseball cap and new sandals.

Olbert has walked across the concrete weir from Zimbabwe. He is in his late twenties. A dirty T-shirt and ragged shorts are all he has to wear, while his feet are bare and calloused.

Olbert has no job. Every day he comes down to the river to fish in the deep pool.

He smiles broadly as he tells me about the fish. "They are as fat as this," he says, pointing to his forearm. "And their meat is very sweet."

Johannes has rolled a handmade cigarette. He takes a drag and hands it across. The two men share it between them as we talk.

It occurs to me that Olbert has no money even to buy cigarettes, and that is why Johannes shares his tobacco with him.

The talk of sweet, fat fish is so that Olbert can save face. The truth is that he walks across the border because Johannes is willing, and able, to give him something to eat.

Sharing tradition

It is the oldest custom in Africa - in times of hunger, people must share with others.

I have seen it in action amongst the poor all across the continent, from the war zones of Angola to the famine-parched savannas of Sudan.

Robert Mugabe may have won his election but even here, on the edge of one of the remotest parts of Zimbabwe, his message has failed to convince:

"They chase the whites from the farms," Olbert says. "They steal the maize and eat the cattle. Then they kill the kudu and the impala. What will they eat then?"

"People have nothing there," Johannes says, pointing across the river to Zimbabwe. "They have no food, no work. That is why they come here."

Olbert gestures angrily: "There was a diamond mine there before. The Australians owned it. It is closed now, because of Mugabe. And we have no jobs."

"Our president," he adds. "He doesn't want anyone except himself to have anything."

Dangerous isolation

Robert Mugabe has utterly ignored people like Olbert. They do not matter to him any more.

He talks obsessively of how he despises Tony Blair and of how he will never allow Zimbabwe to become a colony of Britain again.

It is the last card left for him to play. Defending the African way of life against the pernicious influence of the West.

But here, on the banks of the Limpopo, it appears to me that Robert Mugabe has fallen into the trap of so many corrupted rulers.

He has become dangerously isolated from his own people.

In a continent where sharing is the highest virtue, he has placed his own personal power and wealth above the welfare of his people.

Olbert narrows his eyes and shakes his head. "That Mugabe", he says softly, echoing an old African saying. "He eats alone".