Zimbabwe's Further March to Hell

Fire of Liberty

In my June 12, 2008 post Mugabe's Deadly Actions, I noted that the regime in Zimbabwe had pulled out all stops and was using every bit of their power(absent the military) to intimidate the opposition(MDC) and its supporters to stay home come election day. Even though I expressed some optimism that the people of Zimbabwe would rise up and put an end to these horrific activities, I have to say I'm somewhat sympathetic with Morgan Tsvangirai, who was more concerned about the lives of his supporters and the voters of his country that he withdrew from the ballot prior to last weekend's runoff election. Now while the opposition will live to see another day and most likely will outlive Mugabe(Even though most dictators in modern times seem to live ripe old ages and die in extravagant luxury) it's a sad day for the the people of Zimbabwe, who will face years and years of political violence, ever increasing unemployment, stratospheric inflation, ever increasing hunger, and G-d knows whatever else comes down the pike as the ship of state under the helm of Robert Mugabe drifts into an iceberg field ocean. Such a further descent into one of Dante's four circles of Hell is already under way with two recent pieces here and here in London's The Daily Telegraph. The first points out how inflation is so high that the people have to spending some $50 billion Zimbabwe dollars for a can of baked beans and a whopping $409 billion for a kilogram of sausage. Even worse, the nation is heading for a large iceberg because the German company that supplies the paper for the currency has ceased all future orders. All in all, with such high inflation, no paper to print more money, unemployment rates hovering around 70 to 80% (if not worse) and the limited availability of food one can only wonder how long it will take before the country starts to look like Ethiopia, Sudan, or Somalia. In the second piece, Louis Weston writes that Mugabe's supporters are still roaming the countryside and pushing supporters of the MDC out of their homes and off their farms after Mugabe and his thugs in Zanu-PF took the election this past weekend. It's a crying shame that Mugabe and his clan can continue to do such horrors to their own people and the neighboring countries and the UN can only hand out heavy worded declarations, but then again such is the nature of such communities. Anyway, here's hoping that fortune shines on the people of Zimbabwe and deliver them from such evil.