Zimbabwe: 2007 till Mugabe resigns

[Tom Odom]

Just some tidbits on Zimbabwe, once a breathtakingly beautiful country, and now another on the long list of African failed or failing states:

Zimbabwe's ruling party ousts Mugabe challenger

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's ruling party on Tuesday expelled former Finance Minister Simba Makoni because of his bid to unseat President Robert Mugabe, whom he blames for the country's economic collapse.

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Mugabe's ex-finance minister to run against him
Zimbabwe's inflation tops 24,000 percent

Grasping what 24,000 percent inflation rate means is difficult:

Zimbabwe's disposable currency
Once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, Zimbabwe seems to be nearing economic collapse.
By Sheridan Prasso, Fortune contributing editor
August 6 2007: 11:56 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- What does it feel like to hold a few million dollars in your hands? If you're in Zimbabwe, like this worker, and your wages are in Zimbabwean dollars, not very good. With hyperinflation running at 4,500 percent on an annual basis, all his cash is worth less than $100.

Once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, Zimbabwe seems to be nearing economic collapse. Unemployment is estimated at 80 percent. Electricity has been rationed to just four hours a day. A loaf of bread costs 44,000 Zimbabwean dollars, about 18 cents at black-market exchange rates - or $176 at the official rate.

Stan and I witnessed this sort of thing in Zaire/Congo. Stan had the greater exposure to the decline of Zaire from 1984 to 1994. But for the average Westerner it is difficult to understand just how unhinged everything becomes. Money is for all rationale purposes worthless--yet folks are out there scrambling to make enough for that loaf of bread. Meanwhile the real economy goes under ground using goods, services, and often foreign currency to get by. Diamonds and gold were the hidden currency in Zaire in the mid-90s; I doubt that has changed much. I do not know what serves as the hidden currency in Zimbabwe.

Tom

[Stan]

Great post, Tom !
My singular visit to Zimbabwe via Lubumbashi was a food run for the Consulate. Great steaks, cheap prices and wonderful Aussie accents! Even then in 86, rough cut stones (purportedly from Zaire’s southern province) and lots of malachite could be had in the markets, but only in exchange for hard currencies.

Rates of Exchange (ROE) (DIA adopted that acronym from Rules of Engagement, which actually means the same thing): When I arrived in Zaire, the official ROE was 50 Makutas (one half of a Zaire, or 50 cents if you will) to one USD, and the black market rate (directly in front of the US Embassy and known as Wall Street) was 25 to 28 Zaires to one USD.

When I departed in late 94 the rates were more than 5 million Zaires to one USD

In order to eat in any restaurant, one would need a briefcase. Most of us paid in USD or held a credit account til the end of the month.

Grocery stores did not post prices on the shelves. The value of your purchase was calculated during the arduous process of ringing up your total.

I think Zimbabwe is in for a rough ride, but could they handle the depth and finesse of professional corruption that Zairians invented/perfected

[davidbfpo]

I visited Zimbabwe in 1985, on a research holiday and was impressed at it's natural and human resources. Sadly it has slipped away, largely due to a regime that is interested in clinging to power and having all the "cake". For many years I've been a member of a friendship group, which originally was dominated by ZANU PF sympathisers - who now are very quiet or gone. Their email circulars are often too sad to read, notably the on the ground reports by a long time resident Jesuit priest.

No wonder so many have left the country in the last decade, with an alleged 300k in the UK alone and far more in South Africa.

davidbfpo

[Chris Albon]

No wonder so many have left the country in the last decade, with an alleged 300k in the UK alone and far more in South Africa.

I can personally attest to this. My family is from Zimbabwe. Every one of my family members has fled Zim, the last being my grandmother who fled to England a year or two ago.

Just to give you some perspective: For a few years calling her was hit or miss because people were stealing the copper telephone wires.

[SWCAdmin]

Every once in a while, when I contemplate the price of cars these days, I flash back to watching the Price is Right and wondering whether the price (4 digit) of the car would start with a 3 or a 4. Wow.

Then I think of Zaire and it puts it back in perspective. I wandered through in 92 or 93, just when the 5 million Z note was coming out, which was an issue in its own right. The Marine Det fronted me $50 in local sheckles. I was there for 3 days, spent nothing. Gave them back the same amount of sheckles, plus a check for about $19 I think to make up for the depreciation of the cash during the short time I held it.

One of the local semi-American guys, late 20s / early 30s maybe, told me he could remember as a kid his mom giving him 1 Z, then worth $2, and he could live large and go get a full-on burger, fries, etc. It was something for him to look at a 5 million Z note and not be able to even get a burger with it.

[Stan]

Every once in a while, when I contemplate the price of cars these days...

Then I think of Zaire and it puts it back in perspective...

Bill, I had no idea you visited our tiny community. I'd assume you were not a DIA visitor, or, I was once again out of town.

With your nostalgic post, here's some pics to reminisce

[Tom Odom]

Man those must be mint 50 Makuta's

Let's see 100 Makuta to a Zaire and 5 Million Zaires to a dollar, that means they were worth 1/500 Million of a dollar....

Anybody got change for a 50 Makuta?

[TristanAbbey]

http://bellum.stanfordreview.org/?p=325

Mugabe is 85. Rumors of his poor health are littered throughout cyberspace. “Hardliners” need not remove him from power to send Zimbabwe into chaos; he merely has to die. There is no clear successor and the durability of the power-sharing arrangement is extremely suspect. The combination of all of this — an aging autocrat, an unstable government, rampant disease, skyrocketing inflation, and a disgruntled military — should make Zimbabwe’s neighbors rather wary, as they will bear the tides of refugees in the event.

[davidbfpo]

I have recommended this website before: http://www.sokwanele.com/ which appears to be a Zimbabwean opposition blogsite and the latest article shows massive holes already in the power-sharing agreement.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

A report in The (UK) Daily Telegraph, that more commercial i.e. white owned farms are to be seized: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...e-farmers.html

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

Timed to coincide with Mugabe's 85th birthday party a grim report on the cholera epidemic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...cholera-mugabe The attached short newsreel does not appear to work.

davidbfpo

[Tom Odom]

Timed to coincide with Mugabe's 85th birthday party a grim report on the cholera epidemic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...cholera-mugabe The attached short newsreel does not appear to work.

davidbfpo

David,

I am not one who calls for divine intervention but in Mugabe's case as well as all his entourage divine food poisoning would have been divine.

Tom

[Tom Odom]

This one is a tough read and it really hits at the heart of the white farmer's reality--that regardless of government, Zimbabwe's farmers face expulsion in its harshest terms, at great cost to them and ultimately the country of Zimbabwe. This is a tragedy all around and one only becoming more tragic. Zimbabwe--once a bread basket--has become a wasteland.

Tom

Robert Mugabe's thugs chanted: 'We will eat your children'
As militants attack his home with burning tyres and drive workers from his land, one of the last white farmers in Zimbabwe feels betrayed by the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai

The invaders came at 11pm. Fifteen of them — singing, chanting and crashing metal objects together by our windows. “Out, out,” they shouted as they surrounded our farm — they certainly wanted us out. They broke into the house and dragged burning tyres through the front door. They invaded the hallway and occupied the courtyard. The flames leapt into the thatch as they pulled the tyres under it, but it did not catch alight.

This was last Tuesday. I called the police but then the invaders took the phone away. Their leader, who calls himself “Landmine”, was armed with a rifle. They pushed us around and raised sticks and said that we must leave. They beat my tonga drum so hard that the cowhide skin broke.

[J Wolfsberger]

From The Atlantic:

"... If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.

Later that day, the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe dutifully reported the details of the meeting to Washington in a confidential U.S. State Department diplomatic cable. And slightly less than one year later, WikiLeaks released it to the world.

The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. ..."