/ 1 August 2003

Lack of banknotes leads to angry riots in Harare

A severe shortage of Zimbabwean banknotes has led to riots in Harare as people have shattered banks’ plate glass windows and desperate workers, including police and army troops, have camped outside banks to wait for deliveries.

The country’s escalating economic collapse has forced President Robert Mugabe to hold crisis meetings with his ruling party to determine how to proceed with negotiations with the opposition.

The country’s banks have been besieged by queues of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of depositors demanding to get money from their end-of-month pay cheques. But in a hyper-inflationary situation where a loaf of bread costs Z$1 000 and groceries for a week easily top Z$30 000, there are not enough dollar notes in circulation to meet demand.

In some bank branches women sit on the floor and knit as they wait for the bank to portion out meagre amounts of their money, sometimes only enough to buy two loaves of bread.

Printers are operating 24 hours a day producing currency notes, but they cannot meet the pressing demand. The government is trying to raise foreign currency to place an order with a German company for new notes.

Confronted with this latest economic crisis on top of hyperinflation of 360%, unemployment of 70% and drastic shortages of food and fuel, President Mugabe admitted to a delegation of church leaders early this week that negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were needed to address the economic crisis.

Mr Mugabe, aged 79 and in power for 23 years, then met his cabinet and the politburo of his ruling Zanu-PF party.

He is scheduled to address the party’s larger central committee today.

Mugabe is devising strategies of how to deal with pressure for inter-party talks, which is coming from the church leaders as well as from the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and the Commonwealth.

He is also facing pressure from within his party, as several ambitious regional barons jockey to succeed him.

”People within Mugabe’s party are saying, ‘What are you running if your government cannot even produce enough banknotes?’

”But the shortage of bank notes is only the ears of the hippo. There are huge problems building up against Mugabe, economic and political problems,” said Everjoice Win, spokesperson for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee.

”People in churches are now praying publicly for Mugabe to go. He has had to admit that his party has abused the land programme by grabbing so many farms. There is regional pressure as leaders of neighbouring countries see Mugabe as a liability,” Ms Win said.

In an implicit admission that its land seizures had failed, the Mugabe government this week issued a formal appeal to the UN for continued food relief. An estimated 5,5-million Zimbabweans will need aid because production has fallen far short of domestic needs, despite reasonable rains.

A UN report yesterday blamed government policies for food shortages and five consecutive years of economic decline. – Guardian Unlimited Â