Zimbabwe’s independence anniversary is approaching, but the mood is far from celebratory in a nation blighted by an upsurge in political violence and deepening economic chaos.
The Zimbabwean opposition and critics abroad accuse President Robert Mugabe of economic mismanagement and political oppression.
But he appeared entrenched as he prepared to preside, as he has for the last 27 years, over independence celebrations on Wednesday.
An independent doctors organisation reported on Sunday that hundreds of Zimbabweans, including opposition leaders, were maimed, injured or traumatised at the hands of security authorities since police crushed a prayer vigil in Harare on March 11 they said was a banned opposition demonstration.
An unrepentant Mugabe said opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai was ”thoroughly beaten up by police” on March 11 and had ”asked for it”.
Mugabe warned opponents they would ”get arrested and bashed” again if they continued to protest.
The opposition has denied government charges it was leading a violent campaign to topple Mugabe. Its peaceful campaign has so far sputtered — in part because Zimbabweans can’t afford to stop work long enough to protest.
Soon after independence, colonial-era health and education services were rapidly expanded by Mugabe, making them the envy of the region. Once a regional breadbasket, the nation is now facing acute shortages of food, fuel and most basic goods.
Official overall inflation is running at an estimated 2 200%, the highest in the world. The US dollar fetches Z$250 at the legal bank rate, but Z$20 000 on the black market where much of the nation’s business is done. At independence on April 18 1980, the official exchange rate hovered around Z$3 to a US dollar, then slipped to about eight to one, where it stayed until 1997.
Record books
The price of a humble lump of coal, depending on quality and variety, was up by between 10 000% and 16 000% on Monday — a possible world record hike outside a war zone.
Coal is mainly used to fire industrial boilers and cure tobacco, the biggest hard currency earner until an often-violent campaign to seize thousands of commercial farms from whites disrupted the agriculture-based economy in 2000 and slashed tobacco production by more than two-thirds in the past six years.
Officials at the Hwange coal mine in western Zimbabwe, atop Southern Africa’s biggest deposits of quality coal, blamed acute coal shortages in Zimbabwe in part on equipment breakdowns and poor railroad delivery services.
The state railroad company faced shortages of imported spares and equipment that must be bought with scarce hard currency.
Zimbabwe has the world’s fastest shrinking economy outside war zones, according to the World Bank.
”We are getting in the record books for all the wrong reasons,” said a businessman who said he just ordered two 40-tonne railroad freight cars of coal.
He asked not to be identified. It is an offence in Zimbabwe to insult Mugabe.
In the collapsing public health services, Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy -‒ 34 for women — worsened by an official HIV/Aids infection rate of 22% of adults in the 12-million population. At least 3 000 people die from HIV/Aids and related illnesses each week.
Independent Harare economist John Robertson said with 80% formal unemployment and shrinking productivity, few of the two-million young people and graduates who turned 18 since 2000 found jobs with a regular income, training, advancement or career prospects.
Mugabe (83) describes his countrymen born after 1980 as ”freedom children”.
”The happy man this Independence Day is one lucky enough to have food on the table, electricity and water, savings for his children’s schooling and petrol in the car, if he has one,” economist Robertson said.
‘Some movement’
Meanwhile, there was ”some movement” in President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation in Zimbabwe, South African Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
Pahad did not elaborate, saying only that Mbeki was waiting for the response to letters he wrote to leaders of the rival factions of the MDC and Mugabe.
He said Mbeki had already received an MDC initial draft on how the party saw the mediation process unfold but he would wait for all the parties to reply to his letters before deciding on the next step.
He described the process as being in the ”pre-dialogue” stage.
Mbeki was appointed by the Southern African Development Community to mediate the crisis in Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP