THE PERSISTENCE OF PUTINPAGE 8

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DECEMBER2007

‘I DON’T KNOWWHATWE ARE GOING TO DO TO SURVIVE’ The last days of Zimbabwe

ÓÓSCAR DOMÍÍNGUEZ – Match landscape (1943) DR

Collapse at the centre

Pakistan is the latest country affected by spreading instability because of the war on terrorism after 9/11. More than four years after the capture of Baghdad, the geopolitical outlook is bleak. The military impasse has been followed by diplomatic disasters. The terrorist threat is undiminished despite the declared objective of the United States. None of the conflicts – Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia – have been resolved. There are 165,000 US troops in Iraq but prospects remain uncertain. Daily life for the civilian population is still hell. And there is trouble in the north, on the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey, with the threat of a clash between two US allies. US intervention has rescued its worst enemy, Iran, from two dangerous rivals: the Ba’athist regime in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. (A country can seldom have done its principal enemy such favours.) Iran is now free to concentrate on its nuclear programme. The US and Israel threaten to bomb its nuclear installations, adding to the chaos in the region and driving oil prices up. Nato forces are on the defensive in Afghanistan. The US, with more than 15,000 men in the field, is asking its allies to send more troops. The Taliban have regained the initiative, suicide attacks are up, there is a record poppy harvest and opium exports are booming. Reconstruction is slow and democratic institutions are weak. The provinces, controlled by warlords, are distancing themselves further from the Kabul government. According to diplomatic sources, President Hamid Karzai would not last 10 days if the West pulled out (1). In this unstable geopolitical situation, Pakistan, one of President George Bush’s strongest allies in the region, threatens to collapse. On 3 November

General Pervez Musharraf announced a state of emergency in Islamabad, a serious admission of weakness that alarmed the US. The general, who came to power after a coup in 1999, was hastily recruited by the US in 2001 in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan, just when he was (as he said himself) under threat of seeing his country pulverised in a massive nuclear attack. The Bush administration saw no contradiction in joining forces with a dictator in one country to bring democracy to another. In return for his support, Musharraf got international recognition and $11bn to equip his army and police force. Pakistan, with a population of 167 million, is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons and the capability to fire longrange missiles up to 2,500km. It is of enormous strategic importance, located close to the crises in Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East. The great fear in the US and elsewhere is that Islamists in Pakistan will join forces with the Taliban, take control of the country and get their hands on nuclear weapons. Musharraf is hated by the judiciary. He has muzzled the media and blamed the crisis on opposition parties. His unpopularity means he is the weak link in the political system. The aim of US diplomacy is to replace him in the short or medium term. Not with either of the two main opposition leaders, Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto, who would serve at best to give a democratic gloss, but with another strong man, perhaps General Ashfaq Kyani – someone the US has on a tight rein. IGNACIO RAMONET TRANSLATED BY BARBARA WILSON

(1) El Paíís , Madrid, 25 October 2007.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Pakistan’s army remains dominant and detested page 2

India struggles to cope with growing insurgency page 4

France remains embroiled in the Central African Republic page 6

How Stalin buried politics in post-Revolutionary Russia page 10

Che Guevara’s writings show more questions than answers page 12

Counting the true cost of Africa’s slave trade page 13

Sixties counter-culture goes mainstream in the US page 14

Vietnam’s youth turn away from the heroes of the past page 16

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe,at 83,has outlived Ian Smith,the final white leader of Rhodesia,who died last month.In 1980 Mugabe began with a working democracy,a sound infrastructure and a healthy economy.Inflation is now the highest in the world;there is no work and little food – and what is available is used to control the remaining population

BY AOIFE KAVANAGH

Some 40 golfers braved the midday heat to battle for the big prize on a parched ninehole golf course that had seen better days. The winner of the weekend competition at the Hornung Sports Club in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, would walk away with 25 litres of unleaded petrol. “Last weekend, first prize was a box of vegetables,” a wiry veteran explained as he shaped up to tee off. “Veggies are welcome, but the petrol prize is something special, it’s like gold dust these days.” In Zimbabwe, a white elite who once lived a charmed existence can barely manage to fill their fuel tanks. And years of economic and political mismanagement threaten the lives of the majority black population. Four out of every five black Zimbabweans live below the poverty line. Every wage earner is feeding almost 20 people from a monthly salary. Just over a decade ago the life expectancy of the average Zimbabwean woman was 66. Today it is 33. The central bank’s foreign exchange reserves have been destroyed; supermarket shelves are bare. When President Robert Mugabe came to power in 1980 the country was thriving. Its health and education services were the envy of the region and, thanks to a first-class infrastructure and a healthy economy, the future looked bright. It doesn’t look like that now. Last Friday the ritual queuing began at first light in the centre of the capital, Harare. As dawn broke, two separate lines intertwined on the corner of Lake Takawira Street. The longest was motivated by a rumour that circulated around the city overnight that there was bread in town. Up and down the line people were on mobile phones, texting and calling friends to give them the latest information. Yet many people walked away emptyhanded. When bread and flour do come on the market, they are often bought up in bulk and sold on at inflated prices on the black market, which is the real market. It’s not just bread. Those who have the purchasing power buy what they can – maize, cooking oil or beans – often at government-subsidised prices. Instead of supplying the domestic market, they export the goods to neighbouring Mozambique or Botswana to earn precious foreign currency, although the poorest in Zimbabwe can barely afford one meal a day. “If I don’t get the bread today, who knows, maybe I won’t be able to afford it tomorrow,” a woman in

Aoife Kavanagh is an Irish journalist who regularly reports on Africa

the bread queue told me. She was probably right. Within a month inflation, which already stood at 7,900%, the highest in the world, was widely reported to have jumped to 14,000% (1). For those lucky enough to have a job – unemployment is about 80% – inflation rates destroy their wages. Teachers are still being paid around 12m Zimbabwean dollars a month, about the cost of six litres of cooking oil. The second queue was for the Post Office Savings Bank where scores lined up to withdraw money. The value of the Zim dollar (2) has fallen so sharply that the government can’t print enough notes to keep up with demand. On a bad day, by the time the last in line reaches the cash dispenser the currency will once again have fallen in value. The government further tightened the screw on the availability of hard cash by halving the daily limit one person can withdraw from an ATM. The queues on Takawira Street will lengthen. The impact of this economic meltdown is much more serious than having to birdie the ninth to fill a fuel tank or being forced to stand in line for cash. Four million citizens will need food donations to make it through the next four months. Zimbabwe gets much of its electricity from South Africa but supply is at best sporadic – a direct effect of the fact that Mugabe’s government can’t pay its electricity bills. All over the country, dams are drying up and people are digging their own wells or making do with foul water supplies. The downward spiral of the economy even affects the dead. In rural areas people can no longer afford to buy coffins for their loved ones. Neither can they afford to register their deaths. Nobody knows exactly how many people are dying in Zimbabwe from hunger or disease. In Bulawayo, the state-owned newspaper, the Chronicle, regularly published the number of deaths from starvation until the government banned that. Contaminated water, poor nutrition and a HIV/Aids rate of 15% would put heavy demands on any health service. But in Zimbabwe it is failing people when they need it most. Public hospitals are almost at a halt; if a patient needs a simple procedure, like a couple of stitches or an injection, the instruments or antiseptic might not be available. Two weeks ago, three of the main hospitals were without electricity for more than four days. Fires burned outside the kitchen doors so staff could cook to feed patients. Half of all medical posts are now vacant as doctors leave for London, Dublin or Sydney. Dr Andrew Fairbairn, a white Zimbabwean, whose family has been here for two generations, is

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