Blue Christmas in Zimbabwe
Zimbabweans have no time for Christmas this year. The kids are too busy scrounging for a meal of crickets and beetles. Parents need to find bottled water because all of the wells are contaminated. Conditions deteriorate every day. Surviving the holidays really means something in this part of the world.
Cholera
According to the Red Cross, nearly 1,200 have died from a cholera epidemic sweeping through Zimbabwe. Cholera is easily prevented when people have access to clean drinking water. But even this basic necessity has grown scarce under President Robert Mugabe’s disastrous rule.
The epidemic is expected to worsen during Zimbabwe’s coming rainy season. Despite the humanitarian catastrophe and international scorn, Mugabe remains belligerent.
Starvation
The paranoid Mr. Mugabe banned international charitable organizations from operating in Zimbabwe for three months last summer. He blames all of his countries problems on Britain and the United States. Now more than five million Zimbabweans are facing starvation.
Public institutions like schools and hospitals are all collapsing under Mugabe’s regime. Runaway inflation has made the Zimbabwean currency essentially worthless. Since civil servants get paid in Zimbabwe dollars, their wages have no value. Government offices have closed because no one bothers to show up for work.
Abuse
President Mugabe uses a variety of intimidation tactics to stay in power. His government ordered land seizures put a number of his political opponent’s supporters out of work. His soldiers beat people who show up at rallies for anyone other than him. Mugabe’s political rivals have been imprisoned, tortured and killed.
Recently Mugabe destroyed the homes and businesses of 700,000 Zimbabweans after an election which he lost. Some of these Africans apparently had the audacity to vote for someone else. Life in Zimbabwe may improve next year. It couldn’t get any worse.
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