Thursday, September 22, 2005

Mugabe's Final Solution

Zimbabwe's racist policies continue to drive it to destruction:

We were warned last week that Chipinge would be soon be cleared of white farmers," said Trevor Gifford, the chairman of the Coffee Growers' Association of Zimbabwe. "There are about 80 of us here, the largest group of white farmers left in Zimbabwe and we were informed another eight more will be done before the weekend."

....Doug Taylor-Freeme, the Commercial Farmers' Union president, said: "Developments on the ground where farmers are beaten up and evicted indicate that the threat of a final mop-up of remaining white farmers has begun, even though Zimbabwe desperately needs the foreign currency they earn."

....About 3,500, or 90 per cent, of white commercial farmers have been forced out by Mr Mugabe and his cronies since 2000. Irrigation systems are broken, rich land is fallow, most dairy cattle have been eaten and hundreds of thousands of Africa's most skilled farm workers have fled abroad or are unemployed.

Zimbabwe was a net exporter of food but now depends on imports and the United Nations says up to four million people, or a third of the population, need emergency feeding.

The economy shrank by a third in five years and inflation will reach at least 400 per cent by the year's end, according to government statistics. There has been no hard currency for fuel for the past month.

The government admitted this week that it has no foreign currency to import seed or fertiliser for the summer season, which began on Sept 1, and expects the worst harvests in living memory.

No comments: