Thousands of Zimbabweans jostled in line outside the South African visa office in Harare on Tuesday to apply for travel permits in hopes of some relief from their homeland’s crushing political and economic crises.
Many slept outside the building after South African authorities relaxed visa restrictions. Riot police were called to quell pushing in the line before nightfall on Monday.
Hundreds of people routinely spend nights outside the British visa office in downtown Harare.
An estimated 500 000 Zimbabweans are living and working in Britain, the former colonial power in the country. London is known colloquially here as ”Harare North”.
Customers also sleep on the sidewalk outside banks with no end in sight to an acute shortage of local cash in this crumbling economy.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, with record inflation of 400%, one of the highest rates in the world. Soaring unemployment and acute shortages of hard currency, local money, food, gasoline, medicine and other imports have crippled the economy.
Waiting in line for food and gas have become routine in past months.
Even the dead wait to be buried or cremated.
Impoverished relatives often can’t afford burial fees and Harare’s crematorium has run short of the inflammable gases used in its furnace for cremations.
In the South African visa line on Tuesday, Priscilla Tapa (24) said she was planning to take handcrafted baskets and cuts of ethnic cloth to sell in the markets of Johannesburg.
She hoped to bring back mobile phones and small, high-value electronics components for resale. She said she would probably have to bribe border officials if she was caught with the goods or hard currency destined for exchange on Zimbabwe’s thriving black market.
She said she knew of unemployed friends who had resorted prostitution in this country with an HIV infection rate of 25%.
An estimated 70% of Zimbabwe’s 12-million people live in poverty. Nearly half will need emergency food aid by the end of the year to avert famine, according to the United Nations.
Prices of food, gasoline and transportation have increased sharply. In the past month, the black market exchange rate for the United States dollar has doubled to more than Z$5 000 to $1. The official exchange rate is Z$824 to $1.
The economic crisis is partly blamed on the seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms for handing over to black settlers.
Farming production has dwindled, with many of the settlers facing acute shortages of seeds and fertilisers.
On Monday, the two top officials of the Commercial Farmers Union in western Zimbabwe resigned from the embattled farmers’ organisation after criticising its leaders for not resisting new farm seizures.
The union represented about 4 500 farmers before the often violent land seizures began in 2000. Only about 400 white farmers are still on their land.
Newly displaced farmers have reported being told by district government officials a new phase of seizures, known as Operation Clean Sweep, is to oust most remaining white farmers.
In other developments, Martin Mukaro was the most recent person to be charged under draconian security laws aimed at stifling dissent.
The Zimbabwean man is accused of sending a fax to a friend in Britain describing allegations of political violence by ruling-party militants during district elections earlier this month.
While he was faxing the letter from a public phone store, ”a certain concerned person” called police, court officials said.
Mukaro (35) was freed on bail by a Harare court on Monday to reappear on October 8 on charges carrying a maximum penalty of up to five years in jail. — Sapa-AP