Zimbabwe 'running out of wheat'

[ButterflyBlood]

Zimbabwe has only two weeks of wheat supply left, while citizens are faced with soaring bread prices, Zimbabwe's main milling organisation has said.

The cost of bread has risen by 30%, pushing Zimbabwe's inflation rate to more than 600%.

<...>

Zimbabwe's leading millers - National Foods, Blue Ribbon and Victoria Foods - have shut production at most of their mills because of the wheat shortage, according to AFP.

International aid agencies say about 4.3m out of Zimbabwe's 13m people will require food aid until the next harvest in May.

The country has suffered increasing food shortages, rising unemployment and runaway inflation since the government began redistributing seized white-owned farms six years ago.

Economists say the rate of inflation could reach 1,000% by April.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4773876.stm

This is basically the equivalent of Iran having a fuel crisis. It takes real skill to fuck things up as badly as Mugabe has. Most people couldn't do that if they tried.

[Pavulon]

1. went from a massive exporter

to collapsed net importer in a few short years.

[LostinVA]

2. GOSH, I wonder why?

:sarcasm:

Trying to right past wrongs is NOT the same thing as cognitive dissonance --or megalomania. Zimbabwe needs a Mandela.

[htuttle]

4. They used to have a 'Mandela'...

...he used to be named Mugabe, then he 'spoiled' or something, and he turned into the Mugabe we know today. Tragic.

The story of the leader named Zuwanie (aka 'The Teacher') in the movie 'The Interpreter' was partially based on Mugabe's rise and decline.

[LostinVA]

7. You're right -- it's so hard to remember that time

[ButterflyBlood]

9. I don't think I would be fond of Mugabe at any point....

Considering his guerilla group did this: http://tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=2248

Black nationalist guerrillas bayonetted, axed and clubbed to death eight British missionaries and four of their children at an Elim Mission School in the Vumba Mountains. Among the victims was a three week old child. Several other Britains were wounded in the attack; one was raped. On August 11 Zimbabwe security forces killed two of the attackers, who were armed with two AK rifles. Captured notebooks led police to conclude that the guerrillas were under the command of Robert Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union, who had denied responsibility. Others believed that Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union was involved.

[htuttle]

10. That site has a number of stories about Mandela's ANC, too

'Course, Nelson was in jail at the time, but even he once said, "In order for non-violent civil disobedience to work, your oppressor has to have a conscience." Neither Botha's South Africa, nor the former colonial governors of Rhodesia had much of a conscience. Conversely, I know I'll hate to read the stories 10 years from now about our own actions this decade...

Post-revolution, Mugabe once inspired a lot of hope. Now he mostly inspires fear. His trajectory is more complicated than the cartoonish 'bad guy' sites such as that would suggest.

[ButterflyBlood]

11. True, the ANC did carry some violent attacks

But they were mostly non-lethal bombings or attacks on police officers and enforcers of the apartheid government. Mugabe carried out brutal killings of white civilians with no ties in the Smith regime, including many who actually there to provide health care and education to the black population.

[htuttle]

12. Well, while Nelson Mandela was in jail...

...the ANC did come up with some rather inventive uses for automobile tires and gasoline...Supposedly against informers, certainly they were mostly civilians, but you just never know if you've made a mistake. Just ask the IRA about that.

I would not want to demonize the very laudible efforts the ANC as a party has engaged in over the course of its history. I also would not want to attempt to rehabilitate Mugabe's image as he is today. But I think comparing the histories of the two movements can be more informative if you see all the shades of grey in situations like these.

I'd suggest that if Mugabe had been held as a prisoner of conscience by Rhodesia for decades, and Mandala never had been, the situation in the respective countries might have turned out quite differently. Or maybe not. Nelson Mandela as a person has a strength of conscience and conviction you just don't see very often. I'm not sure I'd say the same about his ex-wife.

[anotherdrew]

18. it was just a few bad apples that did it no doubt n/t

[pinto]

3. This is an instance where I support an airlift. No questions asked.

Drop sacks of wheat. It's a bottom line issue.

[sam sarrha]

5. didn't they repossess land from the whites.. or was that another place near

there..??

there was a political takeover and the white dominated government replaced.. the new leader told the people to take back their land..and ran off the white farmers, but were unprepared to farm themselves.. there were warnings them of possible food shortages then..

but i dint remember which country it was..

[ButterflyBlood]

8. yep, that was Mugabe

Although it happened rather gradually. He turned the country from a struggling fledgling democracy into a starving totalitarian hellhole over the last 20 years.

[Yupster]

13. Yes that was Zimbabwe

I remmber a story about Mrs Mugabe touring the country looking at farms owned by whites.

When she finally picked hers out she kindly asked the elderly owners to leave, and voila, she was a rich rancher. The advantages of being family.

[ECH1969]

6. I bet Chavez will come to Zimbabwe's help

[robcon]

14. There isn't a thug that Chavez doesn't like.

Castro, Ahmadinejad, Mugabe.

[1932]

15. Psst. He doesnt' like the neoliberal thugs.

[1932]

16. Thanks to Ven's focus on oil and destruction of ag sector for 80 years

Venezuela has a while to go before they can export wheat. But they're working towards that, thanks to Chavez.

May I suggest Richard Gott's book on Chavez?

[Odin2005]

17. Mugabe is an example of what happens when...

A populist uses anti-colonialist rhetoric to stife dessent and act despotically at the expense of the livelihood his countrymen, happens in 3rd-world countries all the time. The Mandelas and Chavezes, the 3rd-world populists who resist the temptation of becoming demogogic tyrants, are a rare breed.

[Zynx]

19. It's just the age old struggle to not be consumed by power.

Mugabe has failed the test miserably.