Mugabe Strangles His Nation

Mugabe mangled the land issue. There remains neither equity nor production. As recently as last week, relatives of Mugabe illegally and forcefully took farmlands near Harare from small-scale black farmers, not from whites—and it was not the first time that black farmers had lost their land.

Hunger and starvation have been among the many adverse results of the heavily politicized land-grab starting in 1998. There are widespread reports of hunger, alleviated only by food donated by the World Food Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development. But widespread food distribution, especially in areas that had voted against Mugabe, was hampered and limited. The best indicators predict that because farmers cannot obtain fertilizer, take out bank loans or depend on any consistent law and order, hunger and starvation will only escalate in the months to come.

Intimidation of opponents, a feature of the parliamentary elections in 2000 and the presidential elections of 2002, is still rife. The Zimbabwean presidential election was, as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, blatantly stolen. So were the 2000 elections, but less overtly.

Despite active harassment and some ballot rigging, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) last month managed to win more municipal seats in country-wide elections than the government party and now controls almost all of the major cities, including Harare and Bulawayo. But it is not yet clear whether Mugabe’s regime will in fact permit the MDC victors effectively to exercise their new powers in the cities. A few months ago, the MDC mayor of Harare was suspended—illegally—and frog-marched out of his office.

South Africa could end the Zimbabwean political charade quickly by easing Mugabe, 79, into exile with some of his ill-gotten wealth. Perhaps he could join Charles G. Taylor, the ex-dictator of Liberia, in Nigeria. But South Africa is reluctant to interfere, and President Bush and Secretary Powell’s pressure on South Africa and criticisms of Zimbabwe have produced promises, but no action. It is not clear when South Africa will decide, on behalf of the African Union, that Zimbabwe’s meltdown has harmed South Africa and embarrassed the democrats of Africa sufficiently to produce change.

Mugabe is an African Saddam Hussein and has single-handedly driven a once-prosperous people into wholesale poverty and failure. If ever a country cried out for regime change, Zimbabwe is it.