With 4,000 Dead, 83,000 Infected In Cholera Epidemic, Mugabe Spending £350K For His Birthday Party

[hatrack]

Cholera is one of the most visible signs of Zimbabwe's collapse. It has claimed thousands of lives, infected tens of thousands of other people and left millions of impoverished, half-starved Zimbabweans living in fear of their own drinking water. But Robert Mugabe has tried to make cholera an invisible disease, hiding the dying in hastily erected treatment centres, behind barbed wire and police guards, and burying the victims away from prying foreign eyes. The president declared the epidemic over even as the numbers of dead were growing ever more rapidly, and claimed the spread of the disease was all a British plot.

Now a new Guardian film, smuggled out of the country, reveals what Zimbabwe's autocratic leader does not want seen: the stark reality of life, and death, in the midst of a cholera outbreak that Médecins Sans Frontières only last week called part of a "massive medical emergency that is spiralling out of control".

Voices from the sewage-lined streets of Zimbabwe's townships, where infected water pollutes the drinking supply, speak of the insidious fear of a disease that could snatch anyone at any time. Mothers describe how their children play around contaminated water. Others say it is their only source of something to drink. One interviewee said there had been no water from taps since April. Another pointed out the sewage flowing on to the veranda where her children played.

EDIT

In the week when Mugabe is expected to spend £350,000 on his 85th birthday celebrations, the public health system has effectively collapsed for lack of funding. There is little money for medical supplies. Major hospitals in Harare closed for months because health workers were not paid.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/26/zimbabwe-cholera-mugabe

[iamjoy]

1. Give The Man A Job on Wall Street

he'd fit right in, wouldn't he?

Oh, go ahead and accuse me of hyperbole, Mugabe is a murderous thug and people are dying in an epidemic because of him. But, really, it's all the result of greed and his caring for his own wealth and power more than the survival of the "little" people.

[aquart]

2. Doesn't sound like hyperbole to me. Sounds factual.