Arie Does Not Go to Zimbabwe

So there's a new disaster waiting to happen in the region: Zimbabwe. It's been brewing for a really long time and it looks like it's about to boil over.

Cecil Rhodes arrived in what is now Zimbabwe the 1880s and named it Southern Rhodesia (Northern Rhodesia is now Zambia) (I didn't know we could do that. Uganda is now Arieland. So ordered.). A bunch of British people moved there. It became a self-governing colony in the 1920s under the control of the white minority. By the 1960s, black nationalists, having given up asking the white minority for representation, were petitioning Britain for more political power. They seemed to be making progress. One nationalist organization, the Zimbabwe African People's Union ("ZAPU"), was among the most prominent. Some dissidents, including Robert Mugabe, split off and formed Zimbabwe African National Union ("ZANU"). At first ZAPU and ZANU seemed similar, but of course they started fighting.

Rhodesian white people, scared that Britain might be close to granting black people more power, preemptively proclaimed independence from Britain. The declaration of independence was structured to be similar to that of the United States. After independence, the white government banned both parties and sent their leaders, including Mugabe, into detention camps, where they remained for years.

With support from South Africa, the next few years were generally prosperous for Rhodesian whites. ZAPU and ZANU continued to cause trouble across the borders, but the government was able to keep order and presided over a growing economy. By 1973, thanks to immigration, there were more than a quarter of a million white people there.

But in 1974, a coup in Portugal led to the end of Portuguese rule in Rhodesia's neighbor, Mozambique. The new government in Mozambique allowed ZANU to mount cross-border raids (and it was a big border). Realizing that white rule was doomed, South Africa (which preferred a stable black majority government to a failed white state) pressured Rhodesia to make a deal with the rebels. Rhodesia released Mugabe and others and Mugabe, now fifty years old, went to Mozambique to prepare for war. ZAPU and ZANU started to make inroads, seizing a lot of territory.

Then Henry Kissinger decided to get involved. The United States and South Africa pressed Rhodesia to talk peace, and Mozambique threatened to cut ZANU off unless Mugabe agreed. Mugabe signed a treaty but was furious that he had "agreed to a deal which would to some extent rob us of [the] victory we had hoped we would achieve in the field." He described military victory as "the ultimate joy". The peace treaty was signed in December of 1979.

Elections followed. All three major parties used intimidation and violence, but Mugabe's ZANU-Patriotic Front ("ZANU-PF") was the worst. Mugabe won in a landslide. He immediately went on TV to reassure white settlers that the new government would be moderate. Mugabe's cabinet included white ministers and his army commander was a white guy, as was his head of intelligence (who had spent the last few years trying to assassinate Mugabe). Explaining that "[a]n evil remains an evil whether practised by white against black or black against white," he called for reconciliation -- "[i]f yesterday you hated me, you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you."

How sweet. Mugabe realized that he needed the support of whites, particularly the white commercial farmers who owned most of the best farmland and employed a third of the wage earners in the country. His plan to make nice worked -- in the first two years of Mugabe's rule, they called him "Good Old Bob". The new constitution prohibited the government from seizing any land for ten years, and Mugabe promised to obey it.

Mugabe was not as kind to ZAPU and other competing political parties and insurgent groups. Six months after independence, with the assistance of North Korea, he formed a new military brigade and used it to hunt and kill their membership. After massacres, villagers were forced to dance on their family members' graves while singing songs praising ZANU-PF. Mugabe starved a region that was supporting an insurgency, explaining that first they would eat the chickens, then the goats, then the cattle, then donkeys. "Then you will eat your children, and finally you will eat the dissidents." Army camps became death camps. Despite his efforts, ZAPU did well in the 1985 elections. Mugabe responded with horrific violence and political attacks, and finally ZAPU agreed to merge into ZANU-PF in 1988.

Meanwhile, predictably, tension developed between Mugabe and the white community. In 1981, Mugabe proclaimed that the "honeymoon" was over and he started a repression campaign. Half the white population fled. The remainder elected hardline candidates in the 1985 elections. Mugabe was furious.

By 1987, Zimbabwe had become a single-party state. Mugabe was declared "Executive President", which is apparently Zimbabwean for "Dictator for Life". His government quickly became extremely corrupt. Economic disparities widened as Zimbabwe grew poorer. A major issue was land reform -- while Mugabe's friends had accumulated almost a tenth of the commercial farmland, very little had been given to the poor. The worst off were soldiers who had fought with Mugabe.

In 1990, Mugabe began a program that was supposed to transfer land from whites to poor blacks. It was a disaster. The government used the new laws to seize land from Mugabe's political opponents and give it to Mugabe's ministers. Between the land scandal and the country's economic problems, Mugabe's popularity plummeted. Unemployment had reached fifty percent. The country had become substantially poorer over the last decade. There were protests in the streets, particularly from veterans. Mugabe decided to spend about one million dollars per day on a military adventure in the Congo -- an adventure that enriched him considerably but impoverished the country.

Discontent led to the formation of a new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change ("MDC"). Its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, agitated for constitutonal reform. Mugabe responded by forming a commission to reform the constitution, but stacking it with his own people and having them produce a draft that was very advantageous to Mugabe. In a referendum, Mugabe's constitution was rejected.

Mugabe blamed whites. Ten days after the referendum, with the assistance and direction of ZANU-PF, gangs with axes and machetes descended upon white-owned farms and set upon white farmers and their black employees (fifteen percent of the country). Whites and blacks alike were beaten, women raped, homes looted. Thousands were taken to "reeducation centers" to be tortured. The courts ordered the process halted, but Mugabe instructed his police to ignore the courts. Mugabe also used the opportunity to suppress the MDC and terrorize voters, and indeed, in the next election he won a narrow victory. He then accelerated his land seizure program, and when the Supreme Court declared the program unconstitutional, his government threatened the justices with death. Mugabe then set his forces loose on white-owned stores and factories.

In the run-up to the 2002, elections, Mugabe stepped up his voter intimidation program. The army announced that they would not recognize the election results if he lost. After massive voter fraud, Mugabe won by a decisive majority. MDC members were arrested and beaten. Tsvangirai was charged with treason. Most of the remaining white farmers were told to evacuate their land or face reprisals.

Kicking all the farmers off the land led to massive food shortages. Agriculture, once the nation's largest industry, became mired in inefficiency and incompetence. Mugabe ensured that food went only to his supporters, explaining that "You have to vote for ZANU-PF candidates . . . before [the] government starts rethinking your entitlement to this food aid." One of his ministers said the country would be better off if half the country starved to death. By 2003, the country was basically in ruins, and Mugabe announced that more violence would be unleashed if opposition continued. "If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold."

Meanwhile, life expectancy in Zimbabwe has declined from 60 to 36, one of the lowest in the world. Infant mortality has risen to 81 per 1000 live births. Tourism, once a major industry, is now essentially dead. The BBC, CNN, and Fox News are banned from Zimbabwe. A horrific cholera outbreak is currently plaguing Zimbabwe (in the capital, the government provides free graves for victims); for months Mugabe refused to acknowledge it, but he has requested international assistance. More than three million Zimbabweans have fled the country. One in five Zimbabweans have HIV. Sixty percent of Zimbabwe's wildlife has been killed in the last eight years. Unemployment is at eighty percent.

In March of 2008, Zimbabwe had another set of elections. MDC won a majority of the seats, but not enough to avoid a run-off election. In the run-off, Mugabe's forces were so violent that MDC pulled out of the election. Mugabe and Tsvangirai reached a power-sharing deal in September, but it fell apart.

Meanwhile, there's a bit of a currency crisis. In 1980, the Zimbabwean Dollar was worth about $1.59 in U.S. currency. In February of 2006, facing a broken economy, Zimbabwe decided to fix their economic problems by printing money. They printed eighty trillion dollars. Of course, that led to massive inflation. Zimbabwe responded by making inflation illegal. Government gangs circulated through the country arresting and beat anyone caught raising prices. By January of 2008, Zimbabwe released a ten million Zimbabwean dollar note -- worth about $4 USD. By April, the newly released fifty million note was worth about $1.20. Ten days later, the new five hundred million note was worth $2. One report said that on July 4th at 5 p.m., a bottle of beer cost one hundred billion dollars; by 6 p.m., it was one hundred and fifty billion. The official inflation rate for the month was 2.2 million percent. In July of 2008, Zimbabwe announced the one hundred billion dollar note, and also announced that they would remove ten zeroes from their currency -- that is, the hundred billion dollar note was now "one dollar". One NGO calculated the inflation rate at 89.7 sextillion percent.

South Africa announced this week that they’re planning an intervention. It’s supposed to be a “humanitarian” intervention, though I think it’s safe to assume it will involve a lot of armed guys and tanks. Kenya, calling the regime a “vile dictatorship”, has called for the African Union to send in troops. Even Archbishop Desmond Tutu says Mugabe should be removed by military force. The Archbishop of York says Mugabe should be tried for crimes against humanity.

Mugabe’s also having internal trouble -- the military is apparently close to revolt over low salaries. Zimbabwe has started distributing two hundred billion dollar notes to them, but it’s not clear that this will help. Soldiers in the capital have been looting to survive.

It’s unclear how long this situation can continue. The feeling seems to be days, not weeks. (In fact, as I was writing this, I idly checked CNN a few times just to make sure there wasn’t an invasion or coup yet.) Exciting times.

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