Read it here.

Normblog has a good post on this subject.

For all those soothsayers who predicted UK policy towards the bloody Mugabe regime would soften up under Gordon Brown's tenure, think again.

Brown had a strongly worded statement in the Independent (London) yesterday, laying down the gauntlet to the soft under-belly of Europe (Portugal, among others) with regard to the attendance of teh Zimbabwean dictator at the Portuguese-hosted E.U.-Africa Summit in December.

If the Portuguese invite Mugabe, as he is starving his country to death and arresting and beating anyone who resists his Pol Pot strategy, then Brown will pass on the event.

Though an eventual Portuguese snub to Mugabe will almost certainly result in the refusal of African countries themselves to particpate, that is a more desirable outcome than the spectre of Mugabe trying to turn the meeting into a public relations boon for himself.

Read Brown's excellent statement here.

Read also about Britain's move to tighten the screws on the Mugabe regime by extending the targetted sanctions to children and other family members of the 132 persons among Mugabe's inner circle and ruling elite.

The Australians have already taken this step; what are the Americans waiting for?

The Use of Food and Essential Needs as a Political Weapon

When the struggle against Zapu was at its height in the mid 80's,the Zanu PF
regime here used the distribution of food as a political weapon for the
first time. I recall it well because we were in a severe drought and there
was widespread shortage of food supplies from traditional sources. The 5th
Brigade was doing its "thing" in Matabeleland and although we knew all was
not well, we had scant idea of the full extent of that genocidal campaign.

In that year, the government cut off supplies from State controlled sources
and effectively said to the Ndebele people - if you continue to support
Zapu, one way or another you will die. This was no idle threat - they killed
at least 20 000 people in the campaign, more than had died in the liberation
of the country over many years and they controlled the basic staple foods
almost completely.

They did this by erecting roadblocks on all roads leading into the rural
areas in Matabeleland; these had instructions to stop the entry of media
practitioners and also all forms of basic foods. Relatives in the urban
areas and in South Africa could not reach their families with aid when
requested and no publicity of the operation was allowed.

In 1987, after 5 years of murder, mayhem and hardship, Zapu capitulated and
was absorbed into Zanu PF. There was little else they could do if their
people were to survive. The record of this savage political campaign is
published in the report "Breaking the Silence" now in book form.

At that time there was no threat to the hegemony of Zanu PF in Zimbabwe.
They dominated the political scene and held an overwhelming majority in
Parliament. Mugabe wanted more - he wanted a one Party State. He could not
tolerate any opposition.

Since then many new opposition voices have come and gone. One by one they
were eliminated by effective but less bloody techniques - infiltration,
subversion, bribery, threats and a media black out with propaganda. When
necessary they used violence - targeted and ruthless, or their economic
muscle to force leadership to leave the field or retire hurt.

Then came the MDC, a new labour based political movement with strong grass
roots support. Initially confident that the same lethal mix that had
poisoned the ground for opposition parties in the past would do the job
again, Zanu PF simply ignored the threat leaving it to the security agency
that held responsibility, to "fix" the problem.

When they finally woke up the morning after the referendum in February 2000,
they suddenly knew they were in a real fight - this time for power itself.
MDC had won the referendum even after those responsible for the vote had
ensured that it would be rigged by 15 per cent and had assured them that
they would win the vote quite easily.

The response by the regime to this electoral shock was predictable. Mr.
Mugabe gave a vintage performance on National television saying that he
accepted the decision of the people, but behind that cold façade was a
ruthless and cruel determination to use every tool in the Zanu PF tool kit
against these new usurpers.

In the intervening 7 years, Zanu PF has been forced to gradually intensify
its campaign to retain power, in the process losing its democratic
credentials and its standing in the world community. Now Zanu faces its most
serious threat since 1980 South Africa has forced the next election back to
March 2008 and the SADC is demanding that Zimbabwe fulfill its obligations
as a member and adhere to the SADC norms for free and fair elections.

The strategy evolved by those doing this sort of thing in Zanu PF and
government itself, called for acceptance of changes to the actual voting
procedures on the day, but was intended to deliver a broken, bloodied MDC
and a radically changed electoral pattern to the poll. So we have seen
renewed attacks on MDC structures - across the country, renewed use of
imprisonment, false accusations, torture and savage beatings, all designed
to drive activists out of the country and to ntimidate those who remain.

Then the operation, like Murambatsvina in 2005, designed to close down
business in urban areas, take over major export industries and drive out of
the country another 2 to 3 million urban inhabitants. This is well under way
and I estimate that half a million urban residents have already left the
country for other countries - most going to South Africa. Millions more are
preparing to go and will move as soon as their plans are made.

As part of this integrated strategy the regime here has increased control
over basic food supplies. They are systematically denying the urban areas
food - there is now no maize meal, no rice, no bread, no meat or beans, in
urban areas. People are scavenging for food and the struggle to feed
families and the elderly is becoming well nigh impossible. Couple this to
water rationing or no water at all, water borne disease and fuel at Z$400
000 a litre and the local mini busses charging Z$100 000 per trip to town
and you have a situation that is simply intolerable.

This situation is being creating deliberately - fuel is supposed to be
selling at Z$350 per litre - the actual street price is Z$2 million for 5
litres. Maize meal is supposed to be sold at Z$5 000 a kilo - the actual
price is Z$25 000 a kilo. Meat is supposed to be sold at Z$240 000 a kilo
but the market price is not less than Z$1 million a kilo. The real rate of
inflation for the ordinary worker is probably about 20 000 percent and his
wages and income are rising slowly - controlled by government.

The plan was that by the time of the election in March 2008, the Cities
would be a shadow of their previous state, population down by half and those
that remained, hungry and dependent either on Zanu PF employers or the State
for survival. The MDC would also be reduced to a shell and a broken one at
that! In the rural areas it was Zanu's calculation that their hold over
traditional leaders plus food control would deliver the vote.

This use of a mix of manipulation of the vote using the voters roll, the
delimitation process in determining voting districts and then exercising
physical control over voters on the day, has enlisted the support of the
donor community who pour hundreds of millions of dollars into humanitarian
assistance each year. The agencies involved allow themselves to be co-opted
by the State for this purpose by only doing what they are allowed to do in
this field and supplying food through official channels. NGO's are seen as
extensions of government liable to be denied access to communities at the
whim of local political authorities. Often Zanu PF is allowed to even direct
food aid operations. The UN Agencies are all guilty of such actions.

Breaking the hold of Zanu PF over the electoral system is only one half of
the equation we require to secure our rights as a people. Their hands must
also be taken off the price controls and the availability of food and jobs.
If we are going to get anything like a free and fair vote in 2008, this
latter aspect, which is very much under the control of foreign donors and
investors, needs urgent attention.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 19th September 2007

ZLHR INFO ALERT

The Rapid Reaction Unit (RRU) of the National Human Rights Defenders Project remains on high alert in light of the impending ZCTU stay away and the resultant state repression and intimidation that is currently obtaining. The Zimbabwe Republic Police and their intelligence counterparts have mounted pre-emptive strikes meant to paralyse and disorient the ZCTU ahead of the planned stay away by targeting their organizers and office bearers in various provinces.

Below are the incidences reported so far:-

In Gweru one Isaac Teveteve, the Gweru Branch Secretary of the ZCTU, has been picked up by the police and detained today, 18 September 2007. ZLHR has deployed Mr Garikayi to handle the matter. We have been informed that the police have denied him access to his client. ZLHR is currently pursuing efforts to secure his release.

In Bulawayo today two ZCTU secretariat members, Mr Reason Ngwenya and Mr Ambrose Sibindi, were also picked up whilst one Mcijo is still being pursued by the police and intelligence operatives. ZLHR has since deployed a lawyer to attend to this case.

In a related operation today early in the morning Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) member, Magodonga Mahlangu, was picked up by the police. The RRU has deployed its member, Mr Kossam Ncube, to handle the case.

At least two incidents of attacks on ZCTU office bearers, including the National Organizer, have been reported in Harare. At least three individuals were detained initially in Mbare and have since been moved to Harare Central police station. Lawyers have not been able to take instructions, but it is believed that the three were assaulted before being detained. ZLHR lawyers are in the process of confirming reports and responding to the distress calls. Further updates will be availed in the next Alert.

****************************************************************************************************

Studio 7 for Africa Has the Story.

The Economist yesterday published an article focussing on the increasing misery in Mashonaland, the traditional Mugabe rural stronghold just outside of Harare.

The opening 2 paragraphs of the piece capture the perilous future faced by ordinary Zimbabweans:

OVER 3m people are thought to have left the Zimbabwe in recent years, and the UN refugee agency says it is working on contingency plans in case the exodus worsens. There seems every chance that it will, given 80% unemployment, inflation that was said officially this week to be above 7,600% and severe shortages of the most basic goods. Zimbabwe’s situation is growing ever more miserable.

Another UN agency, the World Food Programme, reckons that 4m Zimbabweans—about one-third of the remaining population—will need food aid by next year. This year’s harvest of maize, the local staple, was meagre. Rains have been poor, and the government’s disastrous land-reform programme has turned once flourishing commercial farming into subsistence agriculture.

The BBC reported yesterday that a senior UNHCR official completed a 4 day tour of the Southern Africa region and appears to have awaken to the glaring reality of the Zimbabwe refugee crisis.

Better late than never, I guess, although UNHCR is still not calling for the opening of refugee camps in South Africa.

An eloquent letter to the editor in the Times (London).

As many as 3,000 Zimbabweans are fleeing economic and political turmoil in their country for South Africa (and as many as 600 are deported back) each day; hundreds have been queuing at the South African Ministry of Home Affairs seeking asylum.

But the U.N. refuses to open refugee camps saying that the Zimbabweans are economic migrants and not political refugees.

IRIN news is reporting that child malnutrition is on the rise in Zimbabwe, with one in 10 children in the nation's capital even suffering from kwashiorkor, (a severe state of malnutrition most often seen in famine or conflict zones caused by inadequate protein intake).

From the IRIN article:

Food short for employed and unemployed

Esther Shereni, 28, of Hopley Farm, a settlement established in 2005 for Harare residents displaced by Operation Murambatsvina, a government campaign that demolished informal housing and business stalls, leaving about 700,000 people without shelter or income, is one parent among many unable to provide enough food for their children.

"Before Operation Murambatsvina, I ran a tuckshop in Glen Norah [township in Harare], in which I also slept, but when it was razed down I became homeless," said Shereni, a single mother who survives by selling flowers to mourners at a graveyard.

She was pregnant at the time, and "because I no longer had a steady source of income, I failed to feed myself adequately and when the child was born, she was underweight and my inability to feed her has continued to this day and she is always falling sick," she told IRIN.

Her two-year-old daughter has an extended belly, an unusually big head and thin limbs - a clear indication of malnutrition. Sherini said it was always a struggle to get the medicines her child needed; the public clinics rarely had any, and she could not afford to buy from private pharmacies.

My dream was to have a bouncing, healthy baby, for that is is what every mother looks forward to but, because of poverty, that has not been possible. I just pray that my little daughter will not die

Shereni's home is a shack made of plastic sheeting, she fetches water from a borehole that is used by thousands of other people, and the settlement has no sanitation or electricity. v "My dream was to have a bouncing, healthy baby, for that is what every mother looks forward to but, because of poverty, that has not been possible. I just pray that my little daughter will not die," she said.

Having a job is no guarantee that the children will be adequately fed. Samukheliso Sigodo, 30, a personal secretary at a Harare consultancy, cannot feed her six-month-old baby exclusively on breast milk because of work commitments, and leaves the child with a caregiver. "That means I have to give the child formula milk and porridge, but the tragedy is that you cannot get these from the shops," she told IRIN.

"While there has always been scarcity, and I have had to rely on traders who buy it from South Africa, the situation is now worse because the shops have completely run out of the products and the informal market has also dried up."

This is from the Combined harare Residents Association (CHRA). The Government newspaper itself, the Herald, admitted in a front page story on Monday that there are epidemic levels of diarrhoea in Harare:

Alert: Health situation getting out of hand

THE Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA) warns of an unmitigated health disaster in Harare unless the City of Harare, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development, and the Ministry of Water Resources and Infrastructural Development moves fast to intervene.

This latest warning from CHRA comes in the wake of biting water shortages and a seemingly porous sewerage reticulation system that has collapsed by all standards. In every suburb CHRA has visited in the high-density suburb in the last two weeks, sewerage is flowing in almost every two streets, creating fertile environments for the spread of water borne diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea and dysentery, which have now become part of every day talk among residents.

In separate interviews with CHRA, residents said children are falling sick due to unhygienic living conditions. Women are having nightmares in dealing with the unfolding health disaster in various suburbs of the capital. The clinics have no drugs and the City health personnel are on strike. Plates go for days without being cleaned.

In Dzivarasekwa Brian Phiri, the Ward 39 Chairperson reported that almost 13 residents had reported illnesses related to exposure to dirty and other unhygienic conditions.

He said raw sewerage continues to flow at the intersection of Pasipanodya Street and Rujeko streets near the Poly-clinic, Gushungo Street off Pasipanodya Street, Corner Boterekwa Street and Robert Mugabe Way and at the railway station where most residents board the ‘Freedom Train’.

“The ticket seller no longer uses the small railway office due to sewerage flows,” Phiri said. “From the main road, four sewerage tanks are all burst and residents no longer use the road.”

In parts of Budiriro, residents have gone for three weeks without water and ZINWA has done absolutely nothing except to send in exorbitant water bills. A lady resident refused to be identified told CHRA that for the past five months they have been without decent water supplies but in the last three weeks their taps have gone dry without any explanation from ZINWA.

Other suburbs seriously affected include Glen View, Glen Norah, Highfield, Mbare Flats, Mabvuku, Tafara, Warren Park, Kuwadzana Phase 3 just opposite Dzivarasekwa High One and the rest of Kuwadzana. Reports have been partially attended to but the bursts are recurrent after a short time, implying that the sewerage piping system.

“CHRA for Enhanced Civic Participation in Local Governance”

Maybe that would get the attention of the gutless SADC leaders:

"We need to get tough on the SADC leaders. We ought to be reassigning aid budgets from their nations to bring home to them the massive costs arising from their inaction and complicity in propping up Mugabe.

We cannot simply go on footing the bill. Thabo Mbeki and his friends have given Mugabe the green light to continue his tyranny.

My constituents are paying for his madness with their taxes; Zimbabweans are paying with their lives."

In today's Telegraph (U.K.), Coltart points out that it is, ironically, the millions who have fled to South Africa and elsewhere who are the key to Mugabe's survival:

"Young people can vent their anger by going south. So you don't have
the people who would be the vanguard of any uprising."

The authors comment on the importance of the millions of dollars in remittances sent back by these expatriate ZImbabwe's, not only to the survival of family members left behind but also to the survival fo what remains of the economy:

But probably the main factor in Mr Mugabe's survival is, ironically,
the very people who have fled his rule. With unemployment around 80 per
cent, by some estimates three-quarters of Zimbabweans earning a living are
doing so abroad, and their families survive on the money they send home.

The funds also support the remains of the economy. Opposition figures
say the remittances help the government survive, but do not condemn those
sending money.

"They have no choice," said Mr Coltart. "Only a dreadful choice
between wanting the regime gone and keeping their families alive."

These come via Normblog.

The deadly impact of Mugabe-generated food shortages.

According to IOM (International Organization for Migration), almost 600 Zimbabweans are deported from South Africa every day.

Read the Economist Article.

Martin Niemöller, an anti-semite German pastor turned anti-Nazi activist (who narrowly escaped execution in Dachau) is the author of this famous poem:

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left

to speak out for me.

Eddie Cross has passed on this modified version of the poem, authored by a Zimbabwean Professor of Mathematics at University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), Dr. Temba Shonhiwa, entitled "First they Came for the Farmers":

First They Came for the Farmers

First they came for the Farmers

and I did not speak out

because I was not a farmer.

Then they came for the MDC activists

and I did not speak out

because I was not an MDC activist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the industrialists/merchants and I did not speak out because I was not an industrialist/merchant.

Then they came for the landlords

and I did not speak out

because I was not a landlord.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left

to speak out for me.

Dr. Temba Shonhiwa,

School of Mathematics,

University of the Witwatersrand

A smart post from a politics blog that appears on a South African Website called moneyweb.com, which goes a long way to explaining, from a classical point of view, how Mugabe hangs on.

Myburgh quotes from Aristole's Politics an ancient desciption of a tyrant, which describes Mugabe's actions almost eerily:

"[He] should lop off those who are too high; he must put to death men of spirit: he must not allow common meals, clubs, education and the like; he must be upon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either courage or confidence amongst his subjects; he must prohibit literary assemblies or other meetings for discussion, and he must take every means to prevent people from knowing one another (for acquaintance begets mutual confidence)."

"A tyrant should also endeavour to know what each of his subjects says or does... for the fear of informers prevents people from speaking their minds, and if they do, they are more easily found out. Another art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the citizens...."

From Zimbabwejournalists.com.

The dry cleaning shop where I take my suits was closed on Friday afternoon when I stopped by to drop off clothes.

When I returned on Tuesday, the clerk on duty informed me that the "price control brigade" of the police had shown up on Friday, shut down the shop, arrested a clerk (he was kept in jail for 24 hours) and ordered the shop to reduce prices to June 18th "gazetted" levels (as all merchants have been ordered to do).

No matter (to the Mugabe regime) that June 18th prices, in an envoronment of 20,000% inflation, do not cover the dry cleaner's (or the grocer's, or the service station owner's or the baker's) costs.

Press Statement

Sean McCormack, Spokesman

Washington, DC

July 26, 2007

The U.S. calls on President Mugabe and the Government of Zimbabwe to respect the right of all Zimbabweans to participate in the democratic process and to guarantee the safety and well-being of its citizens. Yesterday’s beating of over 200 Zimbabwean citizens that were peacefully demonstrating for a new constitution is an overt attempt by the Government of Zimbabwe to eliminate any criticism in advance of elections planned for next year. This latest action continues to call into question the Government of Zimbabwe's commitment to the SADC (Southern African Development Community) mediation effort to establish conditions for free and fair elections.

2007/643

Released on July 26, 2007

The Crisis Deepens

We are now into our 5th week of price controls and the resultant shortages. I am becoming increasingly alarmed at the situation and hope that my misgivings are not misplaced. Today there is no rice in the urban areas, very little bread and what is available is being rationed, there is no maize meal, no cooking oil or margarine, no meat and very little milk and dairy products. I called the Dairibord today and they had no product to sell – nothing, they said they were having problems with their milk supplies. In addition to this situation, public transport is virtually at a standstill. This has developed following heavy fines imposed last week on the mini van taxis that provide 90 per cent of urban transport here. People are being forced to walk everywhere. The wholesalers and manufacturers are virtually out of stock. There is a thriving parallel market for everything but even here the supplies are very short. Maize meal is being sold at Z$250 000 to Z$300 000 for 10 kg’s – that is 4 times the official price, fuel is available but at prices ranging from Z$240 000 to Z$500 000 a litre. Hotels are running out of food – I stayed in a local hotel on Friday and found the staff serving a basic meal of rice with stew and a bit of cabbage as a salad. The queue stretched out onto the road – the manager said to me he was not running a hotel but a feeding station. The manger of the hotel over the road was eating there and said to me he could not even provide the basics to his clients. They had no beer! Local business that has a contract to supply the Prison said that they had 4000 prisoners and could not feed them, not from any source. The Army and the Police are in a similar predicament although the Police have been using their role in the price control exercise to loot business of goods in short supply. I hear that soldiers went through Ross Camp (the main Police camp in Bulawayo) looking for looted stocks. In addition to this crisis in domestic products nothing is being imported commercially. This is because the price control authorities are treating imported goods as local goods when enforcing the price controls. So people who would normally import products in short supply are holding off and no imported products are available. That leaves only cross border shopping, as a means of meeting family needs. Wealthy people are traveling to Botswana and Zambia for shopping trips and poorer families are calling their relatives in South Africa for help. For this reason on Saturday there were hundreds of vehicles from South Africa at the border – all trying to get up to their families in Zimbabwe, drop off supplies and then head back to South Africa. The road was littered with broken down vehicles, as many are old and overloaded. I see no signs of any response to this crisis in basic food supplies. What do the international community and the UN system think they are doing? I hear that when the State tried to stop retailers selling fuel against coupons purchased with foreign exchange that the UN agencies promptly told the government that if they did that they would close down and leave. The government backed down. I heard this morning that many embassies are considering flying food in for their local Embassy staff, one Ambassador told me they were evaluating the difference in buying from South Africa or direct from Europe – great to have options, but what on earth do they think the ordinary Zimbabwean is doing? I will tell you what he/she is thinking. It is how do I get a passport, how do I get to the border or get a ticket to anywhere where sanity prevails? The exercise to remove up to 3 million Zimbabweans from the country by simply denying tem the means to survive is well under way. I estimate that 500 000 have gone already to South Africa, with other destinations that probably means we are up to 600 000 – 20 per cent of the goal, 80 per cent to still go. That’s only 12 000 a day across the Limpopo – an easy target. No amount of border patrols, no amount of policing or forced expulsions will slow down or stop the exodus. There is only one way to do that – give Zimbabweans some hope that they have a future, any sort of future in the country of their birth. SADC leaders gather in Lusaka on the 14th August – just one week away. The future of this country and perhaps others in the region are in their hands. I must say that does not give me a lot of confidence, if they fail us again as they have in the past, we may well have to take things into our own hands, and that could be very nasty. Mr. Mugabe is in Malaysia staying in a five star hotel with no shortages. He could not give a damn. His own strategy for the immediate future is being worked out and he sees no possibility of his efforts being frustrated by regional leaders. Left to his own devices he will get want he wants by the year end, hold farcical elections in March 2008 without opposition and continue as before.

Eddie Cross 6th August 2007

Pol Pot Revisited

Zimbabwe suddenly looks like it has been in a war. The shops are empty, there is little traffic and everyone is walking around in a daze. People stop me and ask what is going on? Well just remember Pol Pot. He came to power in Cambodia in the mid seventies, launched what they called the Khmer revolution and in a matter of months they reduced the capital city to a shell occupied by 25 000 people – down from two million. In the process they had killed hundreds of thousands of skilled and experienced Cambodians, forced millions into the rural areas where they were required to undergo re-education and make a living from subsistence agriculture. It will take Cambodia millennia to recover after this rapacious and ideologically driven regime was removed from power by military intervention. People outside Zimbabwe have no idea of just what has happened in Zimbabwe in the past month. Conditions have gone from difficult to impossible. I am not exaggerating when I say there are no basics – no flour, no maize meal, no cooking oil, no margarine, no matches, no fuel, no meat, no eggs. On top of this there are widespread shortages of water and electricity. I simply do not know how people are surviving. These terrible conditions are being deliberately created in a Pol Pot style operation that is supposed to be dealing with run away inflation. Its real goals lie elsewhere. We now know that this operation was planned a long time ago – probably as soon as it became apparent that elections would have to be held in March 2008. This is no knee jerk reaction to inflation, or to remarks by the US Ambassador about regime change. It began with an exercise to generate a sudden spurt in inflation. This was achieved when the State started buying foreign currency on the open market in June, using freshly printed currency. In a week of frenzied activity the price of the US dollar went from about Z$70 000 to Z$400 000. Importers and industrialists were forced to raise prices to cover the replacement cost of stocks. The State then unveiled its “operation good governance”. Under secret orders, the security forces were instructed to impose price reductions on all businesses. There was no legal basis for these instructions – just orders to go into firms on a systematic basis and order them to cut prices or else. Managers and owners were specifically targeted to intimidate them into compliance. These have been arrested in their thousands, abused and held over in filthy, overcrowded cells with ordinary prisoners. Trillions of dollars of stock values were slashed from prices, no rational basis for these price cuts were sought or tolerated. Suddenly firms faced the situation where they could not restock, could not manufacture and sell for a profit – most of their established products were now being priced into the market at below cost. The more you produced, the faster your demise. Fuel was priced at half its landed cost and overnight some Z$400 billion in stock values was lost as customers scrambled to buy cheap fuel at half price or less. All imports stopped. The prices of all staple foods was likewise set at half or less the cost of production and when stocks ran out there was nothing to sell. Now many theories have been put out about this operation – it was popularist is one, “they are preparing for the elections and forcing firms to cut prices is an attempt to curry favor with voters”. Many actually say it was about time that business was brought to heel – a reaction to the sharp price hikes caused by the first stage of this operation. It is too early for that to be the real reason; they see it as one outcome, but with little long-term value in their strategy. My own view, based on what I know about the background, is that this is a carefully planned and ruthless exercise to reduce the urban voting population, undermine the remaining support base of the MDC and take full control of the population and the economy in time for the March 2008 elections. The dismantling of the commercial farm industry has reduced the voting population on commercial farms from 2 million to about 600 000 and all of them are now under the control of either the State or Zanu PF elements who can dictate how they vote. These resettled areas are virtually no go areas for the MDC. In Communal areas the food supply has been brought under control and direction, as has all other essentials for survival including the right of abode. Traditional leaders are tightly controlled by the State and are now under close supervision by resident CIO operatives who watch their every action. They have been through three elections and now believe that they can control the vote in these areas by these means. They are probably right. So the remaining threat is the urban vote. Now in the majority, with over 6 million people living in urban areas, the towns and cities are the last remaining centers of opposition. So like Pol Pot, the powers that be, in this case the small coterie of leaders surrounding Mugabe and the people involved in the Joint Operations Command, have decided to do some surgery. When this operation is concluded they hope to have reduced the urban population by as much as half, destroyed or taken over all major firms in the private sector and facilitated the takeover of all other surviving firms by loyal Zanu PF supporters. They are deliberately halting food supplies to the cities, destroying jobs and the transport industry. They will then take the pick of the commercial and industrial infrastructure that remains – intact, almost as if a neutron bomb had been used, and move on from there. The remaining urban population would then be in the same position as the population in the rural areas – under tight control and able to vote only under supervision. Then Zanu can allow an election to take place – probably in March as planned, even with observers for the last few days of the campaign and during the vote itself. Zanu feels confident that it can win a clear majority – even a two-thirds majority vote under such circumstances. The only other issue is what happens to the three million Zimbabweans displaced by this ruthless, but clever scheme. Most of them will swim the Limpopo or cross the border at Beitbridge. Once in South Africa, or Botswana, or Zambia or the UK or the USA, they will settle down, breathe a sigh of relief to be somewhere where sanity prevails and try to make a living, any sort of living. They will gradually be assimilated and will start sending small sums of money “home” to keep their relatives alive in Mugabe’s national detention camp. Most importantly, they will not be able to vote. What remains of Zimbabwe will be a sea of poverty and subsistence activity with Party controlled islands of prosperity. A few foreign firms will be allowed to exploit our resources under close supervision and control and the output used to support the lifestyles of the new elite who will continue to enjoy the luxury and pleasures that have become their norm in recent years on the gravy train. It has nothing to do with price control.

Since there is no meat, bread, eggs, milk, salt, sugar, rice cooking oil to be had in the supermarkets, and since I have the possibility to pay, last night, I went out for dinner to a local restaurant called "Mama Mia's", an Italian-Greek place situated in the northern suburb of Newlands.

A trio of middle-class white Zimbabweans were seated adjacent to our table and I overheard the middle-aged woman confiding to her 2 dinner companions that she was "really afraid for the first time."

She recounted how she had spent the morning sojourning from one grocery store to the next across the city looking for bread and meat (unsuccessfully), and how, the week before, she had been witness to a grocery store melee led by armed soldiers forcing the shop owner to slash all prices by 50%.

A Warning

I hope nobody thinks that next week will be business as usual. This week the private sector has gradually wound down its operations. The retail sector – most retailers carry stock for a month approximately, are the last to shut down but already you can see empty shelves and shortages of all the fast moving basic items are now widespread.

Butcheries and bakeries that work on stock levels of about a week are already closed as their stocks ran out. The same with filling stations. Manufacturers must work with quite significant stock levels – especially of imported items and they will run these down and then close unless there is a U-turn on the part of the government and new directives which are half reasonable.

There are no signs as yet as to what the State will do when this shutdown occurs. But all that we are seeing and hearing right now are threats and an insistence that this situation is going to be maintained for some time.

The most immediate problem is the very basics – fuel for transport and the essential foods, maize meal, rice, bread, meat and milk. By Monday all of these will be virtually unobtainable. Farmers with pigs and poultry are pondering what to do with their animals as they run out of stock feed, dairy farmers also face huge problems as they cannot pay their feed bills and must start winding down – how do you tell a cow in milk, used to being milked three times a day, that she must stop producing?

Hundreds of thousands of workers and non-formal sector businesspersons are being faced with no work and are being forced to stay home – at present on full pay, but in a few weeks what then? There is no law to turn to; there are no political leaders to go to with any sort of sense and authority. We are in the hands of a madman who has nothing to loose but his life and has his back to the wall and is using the only tools that he knows to try and stay afloat while the country drowns.

How will the average Zimbabwean respond? Friends of mine are doing a day trip to Francistown in Botswana – just 200 kilometers away, today. They will buy what they need for next week and return. A few will do the same. Others are going on holiday, unable to stand the specter of seeing all that they have built up over the past decades swept away. They are the lucky ones – what about the rest?

There is only one way out and that is across the Limpopo. I must warn South Africa that they will now face a huge upsurge in economic refugees and they had better brace themselves for that if nothing effective is done to halt this madness. I mean hundreds of thousands of new, desperate, hungry Zimbabweans flooding in and disappearing into the vast urban slums that surround all South African cities.

The alternative is a military coup led by the junior officers with the compliance of some in the ruling Party who see that this situation is not sustainable and that it is creating a regional crisis of substantial proportions. Such an event would close the door to the SADC process under way today in South Africa and plunge the country and the region into a huge political crisis that would require military intervention. Am I being alarmist? I do not think so. The actions of this rogue regime in the past week have been enough to tip us over and into a state of crisis we have never faced before.

Irreparable damage is being done to the country and if this is not stopped in its tracks by immediate and radical measures taken by regional governments very serious consequences are going to follow.

The humanitarian and economic crisis that is about to break out in Zimbabwe is simply staggering and certainly way beyond the capacity of the country to handle on its own.

Eddie Cross Bulawayo, 7th July 2007

A friend of mine writing from Belgium today and following the stories of the Mugabe regime's desperate gambit to slash prices in order to curry favor with some said: "the old man hanging on is a classic study in irrationality... hope you are taking notes!"

Here is Eddie Cross's take on Mugabe's irrationality:

The Pirates and the Party

About two weeks ago Mr. Mugabe made a speech at the funeral of a General who died under mysterious circumstances and in it he attacked the private sector for raising prices in the name of regime change. He threatened the mining companies as well as everyone else and said that if they did not come into line with what the Party wanted they would be taken over.

Since then a shadowy, totally unaccountable organisation known as the “Joint Operational Command” has taken up the call and last week they summoned senior business leaders to a meeting and instructed them to roll back their prices to the level they were at on the 18th June. The meeting was held with the Commanders of the Army, the Police, the CIO, Air Force and the Prison Service.

Since then all major retailers and wholesalers as well as the majority of manufacturers have reduced their prices to the June 18th level. Remember prices were doubling on a weekly basis at the time with inflation about 15 000 percent per annum. So these price reductions were major and across the board.

Last weekend the smaller retailers were attacked – I am not sure we can really call it anything else. One by one they were approached by small groups of officials, police and militia. The messages were confused and varied from store to store and group-to-group. Some simply said they had to reduce a limited range of 18 items to the price levels listed, others said it was the roll back to June 18th while others simply said cut your prices by 50 per cent.

No opposition or arguments were tolerated. If the retailers resisted they were arrested and taken to local police stations. In other cases stores that were closed had their doors smashed open and prices reduced under supervision and then the public allowed in, buying the goods at the lower prices. Many businesses were faced with near riots as people scrambled for goods. In other cases the authorities confiscated goods, especially where they found goods stored behind shops.

Then they started on the fuel stations – systematically all stations selling fuels were visited and if they had stocks they were told to sell at Z$60 000 a litre or else. One operator in Bulawayo refused, was arrested and released when his lawyers intervened, rearrested and taken to see the senior officer in Bulawayo who told him no resistance would be tolerated and they then sent the police to force him to open up and sell. He lost Z$3 400 000 000 in 12 hours on 47 000 litres of fuel bought at Z$132 000 a litre. Today there are long queues at all filling stations still with stocks. I project by Monday that there will be no fuel at all in the City, probably in the whole country. Worse still the fuel importers have stopped buying foreign exchange and halted imports. It will take weeks to get back to “normal”.

The butchers were simply told to sell “meat” at Z$90 000 a kilogram or in some cases Z$120 000 a kilogram – there was no explanation of the difference. Since the cost of beef is well above these levels, they quickly sold out and then closed. Today there is no butchery open in the entire City. Bakers are following suit – they were told to sell at Z$22 000 a loaf and they did so but stopped buying raw materials. Today bakers are slowly closing down across the country.

In the milling industry “controlled” prices are half the real cost of production and the national staple food, maize meal, has disappeared from the stores. The prices of other carbohydrate foods such as potatoes have doubled. Rice is controlled down to half its cost and will also be in short supply by next week as stocks run out.

If supermarkets are unable to restock because either they cannot buy products at controlled prices and sell them for a margin to cover other costs, or the products are just not available, then all basic needs will start to run out next week. For some mysterious reason one product was specifically targeted – Mazoe Orange Juice. Its price was set at Z$120 000 for two litres and when all the dust had settled the manufacturers were give n an approved price of Z$180 000 per unit. So if you were to buy this product today you would have to sell it at a loss. Sugar sales from the mills in the Lowveld are Z$15 000 a kilogram – the retail price is Z$17 000. A mark up of 13 per cent – the fuel on collection of this product from Chiredzi is Z$7 300 per kilogram alone.

This morning we watched a police raid on a small “Spaza” store run by a single women who has a teenage son. A 7 tonne truck arrived with four police on board, they collected all her stocks and loaded them and then ordered her to appear at the police station at 14.00 hrs. The police officer in Charge was Inspector Banda, force number 048168 F.

There she was harangued and fined Z$40 000. Her goods were offloaded into a large warehouse that was full of confiscated goods. While we watched a well-dressed man in a new vehicle, number 807 516 J drove up and helped himself to 4 bags of sugar. He did not sign a receipt and drove away. The vehicle was a make that is driven by senior police and army officers.

While we followed this small saga being played out, we saw truckloads of police coming and going and more goods confiscated from small informal traders all over the City coming in. Its quite clear, the Party wants to show that inflation can be beaten and they are making the business sector pay the price. The people carrying out these illegal and irresponsible orders are rewarded for their diligence with authority to loot the stores they are raiding. Since the big boys in this game can defend themselves, it is the small people and the informal sector that suffers most. So much for Zanu PF socialism, or as Mugabe would put it, his personal brand of Marxist Leninism.

As one man said to me on the street, “Well Eddie, at least now you know, you do not need to campaign for MDC in March, these people are doing it for you.” He may be right but how on earth do we get there!

Eddie Cross Bulawayo, 5th July 2007

An update from friends in Bulawayo:

"Following the imposed price reductions, business in Bulawayo has ground to a halt. Major clothing shops,(Edgars, Express, Power Sales and Factory Shoes) have closed their doors and are not doing any business. Supermarkets are open to the public for business but there is absolutely nothing on the shelves and consumers can be seen milling around in the hope that some basic commodities will be made available. Most butcheries have closed down and there’s not a morsel of meat, red or white, to be found in the city, something that most residents have never witnessed."