This is the first diary in a series I plan to write about human rights crises in Africa- a continent that both Democrats and Republicans alike forget about all too easily.
Today, we'll go to Zimbabwe, a country that has watched itself fall apart overnight.
PBS's Frontline had a great 25 minute segment about Zimbabwe last week. What I learned from watching it is horrofic. The country is a mess in just about every way imaginable.
Yet only a couple decades ago, Zimbabwe was a model for all of Africa. It had a promising economy and an equally promising leader in Robert Mugabe, who lead Zimbabwe's transition from white minority rule to what was supposed to become a fair and open Democracy.
But as Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa would say, Mugabe became a caricature of an African dictator. In 1980, he was overwhelmingly elected president of Zimbabwe. He spoke of harvesting a Democracy, of preventing a backlash against Zimbabwe's whites, and of economic progress.
What happened to Robert Mugabe is a mystery. Today, he is your quintessential African dictator.
(Notice the Hitleresque mustache? Another mystery.)
Starting sometime in the 90s, Mugabe started running Zimbabwe into the ground. About six or seven years ago, he embarked on a land reform initiative- aka taking the country's profitable farms from the whites and distributing it. The results were disasterous at both a humanatarian and economic level. Thousands of Zimbabwe's white farmers, who were major funders of Mugabe's political opposition were killed or forced out of the country. The white supporters of Mugabe, however, had both their lives and their farms spared. The white farms that were confiscated, however, were not distributed to Zimbabwe's poor peasantry. Instead, cronies of Mugabe were put in charge of these farms, many of whom had very little farming experience.
Mugabe had taken action in the past to increase his authority. In 1987, he suspended the position of Prim Minister and made himself the Executive President, giving himself more power in the process. Until now, however, Mugabe's conquest to a 100% authoritarian regime would not be apparent to the international community. Now began Mugabe's desperate and violent attempt to retain power, which continues today.
Now, every decesion Mugabe made centered around staying in power. The most disgusting initiative of his administartion was Operation Murambatsvina. Following a rigged 2002 election, Mugabe was determined to squash dissent in Zimbabwe. The hotbed for Zimbabwe's opposition lies in poor, often urban slums. Under the guise of trying to combat disease, Mugabe mobilized his thuggish supporters to raid these slums. The victims were some of Zimbabwe's poorest.
Since Mugabe got drunk with his power, Zimbabwe has had the world's highest rate of inflation: over 1,000%. A farmer's production is often confiscated, and when coupled with Mugabe's disasterous land reform, malnutrition becomes a severe problem. Even maize, once a plentiful harvest, is now scarce.
But perhaps the most telling statistic of how fast this once proud nation has plumeted in the last few years is this one:
Of all the depressing statistics about Mugabe's broken country, the one that gnaws at me the most is that life expectancy has declined in the last two decades from 62 years to a mere 38 years.
Money is not worth the paper its printed on
Malnurtition becomes a problem in a fertile region of the continent.
And these children are only expected to live 38 short years
Visit Doctors Without Borders to see what you can do to help.