| Robber Mugabe |
7 July 2003
|
Zimbabwe's President is the Problem
Zimbabwe's capital city Harare faces water rationing. This is something that the same city never faced when it was Salisbury, Rhodesia. The 23-year reign of President Robert Mugabe, thug, liar and murderer, has brought this potentially rich nation to its knees. Of course, he puts the blame squarely on saboteurs who object to his policy of having poor blacks take over land owned by the rich whites who stayed after independence.
The saboteurs, if they exist, are doing an amazingly good job of causing misery. Inflation stands at around 300% a year, about 7 million of the nation's 14 million people face food shortages, and 70% of Zimbabweans are out of work. If a group bent on destroying the country could achieve this, though, they would have had the ability to get rid of Mr. Mugabe as well -- he would be gone already.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is starting to notice, however awkwardly. The recent blow up over Mr. Mugabe's description of Secretary of State Colin Powell as an Uncle Tom was laughable -- the US government should have blown up over the misrule and dictatorship that the ZANU-PF party has provided since Rhodesia began doing business as Zimbabwe. Last month alone, 300 strikers were tossed into jail and their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, charged with treason.
If Zimbabwe should collapse further, southern Africa as a whole will suffer. Mr. Bush appears to be interested in Africa far more than most of his predecessors, and he has shown himself to be willing to use force to change regimes in nation's that need it. If that is to be the case, a plan for reconstruction is the priority. Any invasion would be a walkover since Mr. Mugabe has no weapons of mass destruction, unless one counts his policies for the last quarter of a century.