Zimbabwe: What's Up With That?

Everyday we open the paper to see a slew of seriously sad stories about Zimbabwe. Today:

Zimbabwe cholera deaths top 3,000

Zimbabwe’s Education System Crippled on First School Day

Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Closed Indefinitely

So what’s going on over there?

Zimbabwe is ruled by Robert Mugabe, a man generously described as a president (more like a dictator), who is a big time human rights violator and a big time U.S. enemy. Since coming to power…

The life expectancy for Zimbabwean men has dropped to 37 years and for women, dropped to 34, the lowest for any nation.

The average annual income has fallen from US$950 to US$400.

He has outlawed homosexuality, calling gays “worse than dogs or pigs.”

He’s helped ravage the Congo for natural resources.

He has stolen land from commercial farms and given it to his cronies.

He has compared himself to Hitler saying, “This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold.”

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing a hard currency shortage (aka it has no cash), which has led to hyperinflation (the highest in the world at 11,250,000%) and chronic fuel shortages. 

Most people see these tragedies as the result of governmental incompetence/corruption and the AIDS epidemic. Not Mugabe, he thinks it’s a “a sophisticated conspiracy of white people and white nations to discredit the country’s black run government.”

True, there are serious trade sanctions against Zimbabwe emanating from the West, but the U.S. and Britain try not to deal with people who rig elections. In fact, President Obama wants to intensify these sanctions in order to get Mugabe out of office. 

Right now the country is in limbo: Morgan Tsvangirai, the man Mugabe stole the presidential election from, has worked out a tentative power sharing deal with his foe, making him the Prime Minister and Mugabe the Pres. But it’s all shaky and the country is going to hell in the meantime.