Zimbabwe - the population is shrinking, emigration, disease ,AIDS,removals ...

The excellent and indominatable Peta Thorneycraft miraculously keeps reporting in the Torygraph the plight of Zimbabweans. El Presidente (in excellent health apparently) is apparently currently enjoying the delights of Malaysia ..... and bread is so costly it goes stale on the shop shelves. The price of bread was increased last month from Z$295 to Z$850 ($3.30-ish)a loaf because of escalating costs of flour and production.(Herald report)

Maize (corn) is unavailable and stocks (like Saddam's WMD's) are now a State secret. Zimbabwe is in the 7th year of an economic recession which culminated in a more than 1 000% inflation rate in 2006, unemployment of more than 70% and shortages of all basic goods like fuel and cooking oil and staples.

Power cuts from Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, ZESA are regular and last weeks shut down of power to half of Harare last week by workers to protest their poor wages was hardly noticed. (Doctors and some nurses are also on strike)

However the whole of Southern Africa are facing huge electricity supply problems. The SA Power Pool - a body that co-ordinates the planning and operation of electricity power systems among South African Development Community member states — total annual demand will clock 44 689 megawatts by the end of 2007 against combined net generation capacity of 45 000MW.

At the current growth rate, total regional demand for electricity is projected to hit 45 827MW by the end of 2008; 47 920MW in 2009; 48 795MW in 2010; and 50 291MW in 2011. Capital projects totalling US$5.2 Bn are required simply to meet the projected shortfall in the region.

The Sunday Times has a report yesterday , "Zimbabwe, the land of dying children"

They claim that 42,000 women died in childbirth last year, compared with fewer than 1000 a decade ago. and point to a cull ammounting to geneocide that is " perhaps 10 times greater than Darfur's and more than twice as large as Rwanda's"

Of course many haven't died but fled, South to SA, and many others worldwide. Many are simply "missing". AIDS is prevalent - a 2004 UN report stated that 55% of the armed forces were AIDS positive and the UK Health Protection Agency said in 2002 that over 50% of new AIDS cases in the UK came from Zimbabwean immigrants, principally women. There are some 30,000 native born Zimbabweans in the UK.

The crackdown started with Operation Murambatsvina (Shona for "drive out the filth") in which the police and army destroyed shanty towns and cracked down on unlicensed traders after Mugabe decreed that they needed to be forcibly "re-ruralised" to regain their peasant roots. An idea proposed by Mengistu who obtained refuge in this stricken land with the help of the US and who now works as a power behind Mugabe.

Now we have , Operation Maguta ( which in the double speak of the double ungood means "live well", prompted by a shortfall in maize production since the white owned and run commercial farms were destroyed. Maguta means villagers on communal land are compelled by Army thugs them to grow maize and sorghum, which they must then sell to the army-run Grain Marketing Board(GMB). Receipts of wheat so far are 135,000 tons against a target of 200,000 tons.

In Matabeleland, where maize does not grow well, the army has gone in hard, beating peasants who resist, raping women chopping down orchards and tearing up vegetable patches.

Didymus Mutasa, the brutal, uneducated Security Minister is reported saying in 2002, that "we would be better off with only 6million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people".

Pius Ncube, the Catholic Archbishop of Matabeleland, says "What is going on is truly evil but I do not think they set out to kill people, it is just that they do not care."

"Their only concern is to stay in power and enrich themselves and to turn people into terrified, compliant subjects ... Mugabe is a murderer and also a traitor - he is selling the country to the Chinese. It is lonely to be the only one to say that."

Still the West turns a blind eye. Zimbabwe is simply not on the UN agenda: South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, has for a long time used his influence to stifle debate and comment. Nor do the Chinese wish to stir trouble as they ship off the copper ore, beyond supplying radar and anti-aircraft missiles for Mugabe's palace. Ministry of Defence Permanent Secretary Trust Maphosa also revealed recently the purchase of 12 K8 Chinese/Pakistani jet fighter trainers at a cost of some US$20Mn each. This is no doubt part of El Presidente's "Look East" policy to forge closer links with Asia - all part of of the national economic development priority programme (NEDPP).

Chinese Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) offered $3bn for a 60% stake in Zimbabwe's struggling state-owned steel firm, Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (Ziscosteel) which is running at 30% capacity at the end of November - nothing has been heard since. This came 2 months after the government announced the collapse of a $400m investment by India's Global Steel Holdings to rehabilitate Ziscosteel - the fate of many grandiose projects.

Where does Mugabe's money come from? - well Bindura Nickel (previously 53% owned by Anglo American who sold out 2 years ago) secured a Paribas Bank loan to cover Kuwaiti owned road fuel shipped in from Mozambique. Who owns what, no-one knows but the product ships to China and the income presumably gets divvied up between ZANU PF henchmen.Their Trojan mine is undergoing a US$10 MN refit to replace 30 year old kit which will be operating from May 2007. Falcon Gold and Huwange Colliery are other successful mining enterprises.

Mugabe - and, to a considerable extent, Mbeki( This is Rupe's Rag saying this remember) -"have already been responsible for far more deaths than Rwanda suffered, and the number is fast heading into realms previously explored only by Stalin, Mao and Adolf Eichmann. "

There were 4,500 white commercial farmers in 2000, and now there are possibly 500 left. On December 20th Mugabe signed the Gazetted Land Act , the tool of Didymus Mutasa, who is also in charge of land reform, which means farmers or occupiers would be allowed to stay in farm houses for up to 90 days, and then must leave.

Mutasa is quoted last week by Reuters.."My ministry will issue notices to vacate these and expect compliance in terms of the law, failure of which will result in prosecution", he said, adding that those found guilty would pay a fine or face a two-year jail term or both.See Gubment website

The United States unveiled the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act 2001 imposing sanctions on President Mugabe and his closest lieutenants. Yet the New Zimbabwean reports ""Gifts and donations with a total value of $88 332 609 in 2003 being computer equipment and accessories were received by the Air Force of Zimbabwe from the government of the United States of America," major general Ruwondo said in a report dated October 26th 2006.

Bright spot ? (Zimbabwe won the 1.50 pm race @ Exeter on New Year’s Day !).

In July, villagers in impoverished Marange district in Eastern Zimbabwe discovered diamonds sparking a massive diamond rush, so in November police launched Operation Chikorokoza Chapera (No Illegal Panning). So far more than 19 000 people have been arrested for illegal mining and smuggling. The official Mineral Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) is supposed to have a monopoly on purchasing all diamonds in Zimbabwe. Smuggling to SA and Mozambique is rife at present.

Now suspected emerald fields have been found at three sites in Buhera district Chishanyi, Svongwa and Jori and about 3 000 people have joined the latest rush, reports the state-controlled Manica Post newspaper.

Local chiefs say the minerals are a gift to them from their ancestors, meant to cushion them from Zimbabwe's deepening economic crisis.(Press 24 (SA) report)

Meanwhile an IMF team spent 11 days in Harare pre-Christmas looking at defaults on over US$125 of loans, non payment of which could lead to removal from the IMF at their review meeting in February.

What can I do ? Well educate yourself by setting up Google Alerts, Mugabe, Mutasa, ZANU-PF, hounding your MP, MEP, tell your friends now, it is too late but eventually the conscience of the West will be prodded into action. Meanwhile some links to follow ....
Cry Beloved Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe Outpost of Tyranny (links to every conceivable Zim site)

Crisis in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Vigil

A vigil is held outside the Zimbabwean Embassy in London every Saturday from 1400 to 1800 hrs and this week singer Viomak was present - her new “Happy 83rd Birthday President R.G Mugabe (Zimbabwe Classics 2) Bones of a 30 Year Old.” is due out soon. Her website is here
http://www.viomakcharitymusic.com/ where you can listen to and order HAPPY 82ND BIRTHDAY PRESIDENT R.G MUGABE ( ZIMBABWE CLASSICS 1) Emotions Of The Emotionless. see more pics here

Tonight - Monday, 8th January, 7.30 pm, First Central London Zimbabwe Forum of 2007.
Jenni Williams of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise)
Monday, 15th January, 7.30 pm, Forum + MDC Central London Branch Assembly.
Upstairs at the Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28 John Adam Street, London WC2