Immiserated Zimbabwe Rots as Diplomats Fecklessly Negotiate; Parallels Are Drawn to Auschwitz

This article was rejected by the parochial obscurant who controls the opinions page at The Red & Black.

Merely to read the reports coming out of Zimbabwe is to feel helpless, ill, and outraged. Unimaginable destitution and misery prevail. The World Health Organization reports 56,000 cases of cholera and nearly 3,000 deaths; the fatality rate is eight to ten times higher than usual. Abduction, torture, and murder are official tools of the state.

The Times of London quoted a priest who operates a countryside clinic as saying, “People are starving here. The extent of the suffering has reached Auschwitz proportions.” This absolute collapse in Zimbabwean society is attributable to one man: President Robert Mugabe.

Mr. Mugabe has led Zimbabwe since its 1980 transition from white-minority-run Rhodesia. In 2000 he began seizing white-owned farms and handing them over to his political supporters, who pillaged the land and ruined the agriculture. He explained, “Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy.”

This land theft transformed what had been known as Africa’s bread basket into a country ravaged by malnutrition and dependent on emergency food aid. In eight years the cereals harvest has declined from 4.5 million to 800,000 tons, according to the Times. It is one of the many cruel ironies that define Zimbabwe’s recent history.

Nine years ago 92 percent of children attended primary school, but that figure is estimated to have fallen below one in four. Last year there were but 27 days of school; most teachers were on strike or could not afford food or transport. More than 20 were murdered by the state for their political activities. Recently it was announced their monthly salary would be the equivalent of one American dollar.

The economy is predictably in a state of devastation. Hyperinflation has wiped out people’s savings. A paper published by the Cato Institute last November calculated Zimbabwe’s annual inflation at 89.7 sextillion percent. The reserve bank just introduced a ten trillion dollar note and has plans for them in 50 and 100 trillion dollar denominations.

Amidst this debacle an election was held last year. International monitors agree the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won, but Mr. Mugabe has refused to concede and has instead become more deranged and intransigent. Mr. Tsvangirai has sporadically been driven into exile in South Africa and Botswana and once had to seek refuge in the Dutch embassy, government thugs having hunted him down.

A delegation from Physicians for Human Rights recently visited Zimbabwe, and in their report they described “added proof of the commission by the Mugabe regime of crimes against humanity.” They also noted worryingly that due to interrupted and inconsistent antiretroviral treatments for AIDS sufferers, it is possible drug-resistant strands of HIV may develop. The public health crisis emanating from Zimbabwe could quickly become a regional disaster.

Because of the stealing of elections, the jailing and murder of civic leaders and journalists, and the humanitarian catastrophe (famine, epidemic, economic disintegration), a multitude has called for Mr. Mugabe to step down or be removed militarily and brought before an international criminal court. It includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Washington Post editorial board, the Primate of the Church of England John Sentamu, and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Mr. Mugabe had the effrontery to respond, “I will never, never, never surrender. Zimbabwe is mine.” A vile statement like that needs to be repudiated in the most forceful and decisive terms, and the way to do so is for an international force to draw to a close this senile kleptocrat’s misrule. The terrorized, beggared people of Zimbabwe deserve better than the world’s dithering and inaction.