The Land of Dying Children

RW Johnson has a powerful article on Zimbabwe in the Sunday Times today.

A vast human cull is under way in Zimbabwe and the great majority of deaths are a direct result of deliberate government policies. Ignored by the United Nations, it is a genocide perhaps 10 times greater than Darfur’s and more than twice as large as Rwanda’s. [...]

World Health Organisation figures show that life expectancy in Zimbabwe, which was 62 in 1990, had by 2004 plummeted to 37 for men and 34 for women. These are by far the worst such figures in the world. Yet Zimbabwe does not even get onto the UN agenda: South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, who has covered for Mugabe from the beginning, uses his leverage to prevent discussion. How long this can go on is anyone’s guess.

After Rwanda, the UN vowed “never again” but Mugabe — and, to a considerable extent, Mbeki — have already been responsible for far more deaths than Rwanda suffered and the number is fast heading into realms previously explored only by Stalin, Mao and Adolf Eichmann.

Comments

[dearieme]

Mrs T brought us Mugabe. In her early years in office, whenever she gave way to her cabinet colleagues she was wrong. By the end, she´d realised that and stopped listening to them, which was also wrong.

[Richard]

Mugabe was a fairly typical African leader until only a few years ago (hence I dismiss the comment of "dearieme"), when he panicked at the prospect of losing an election and decided to rule by fear. His crackpot scheme of "Africanising" agriculture is what has crippled this once rich country. If he had just taken the farms from the whites and given to the black farm workers it would not be so bad, but he just gave them to his cronies, who knew little of farming and just treated them as weekend retreats.