Under the banner, "Youth empowerment for a prosperous and peaceful Zimbabwe", dictator Robert Mugabe kicked off his over-$1 million 83rd birthday celebration on Feb. 24. As he entered a soccer stadium filled with party members, indoctrinated youth, and food for them all, he held up his fist in pride.
Outside, with police patrolling the streets to enforce a ban on protests, the people of Zimbabwe sat, wondering why their president’s birthday had also been the last day that most of them could have access to a loaf of bread. Bakeries had shut down due to government regulations which made them lose money on each loaf.
Mugabe, who has been Zimbabwe’s leader since its independence from the U.K. in 1980, was once president of a thriving economy, the “breadbasket of southern Africa”. But becoming obsessed with power made him eventually reverse that, as well as destroy human rights within his country. Due to government policies, the inflation in the country is currently 1,600 percent, higher than anywhere else in the world. For every one U.S. dollar, the trading rate is 5,000 Zimbabwe dollars.
Mugabe partied as around 80% of his people (according to the International Monetary Fund) sat unemployed. He toasted to his presidency after, in 2005, he kicked 700,000 people who lived in opposition-supporting areas out of their homes. He celebrated an abundance of food for his circle of followers, while the rest of Zimbabwe sat hungry after seasons of decreasing agricultural production. And maybe most outrageously, he celebrated his 83rd birthday, while his country now has the lowest average life expectancy on earth (according to the U.N.), with men expected to live to 37 and women to 34. And now contrast that to the life expectancy in 1990, which was 60. Somewhere along there, he must have gone wrong.
It’s crazy, isn’t it, how such a man can become possessed by a drive for power. A great national hero has turned into a ruthless dictator, and his people have suffered the consequences. How many more times will the life expectancy halve before the international community starts caring?
With bread missing from its plates, Zimbabwe may not have long to wait.
I haven't followed it much, but Robert Mugabe is indeed a vile specimen of the human race, and one wonders if it might not have done more people a greater good to have invaded Zimbabwe instead of Iraq to liberate its people. A truly disgusting person.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/01/zimbabwe_melts_.html is a good primer on what's been going on there recently. It's a blog post from late January, and all of the atrocities reported are from within the previous ten-day period.
"CONSERVATIVE, n.
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."
- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
I read about his policies to counter inflation - nowhere have I encountered such blatant stupidity.