Zimbabwe is Africa's shame, Tutu declares

Thank God for Archbishop Tutu. As South Africa's President stays mute and refuses to condemn the crimes of Mugabe, Tutu at least has a voice and the courage to condemn.

"We Africans should hang our heads in shame," said Dr Tutu of the largely lukewarm response from African leaders, who have hitherto given Mr Mugabe a lifeline despite his ever escalating human rights abuses. Dr Tutu, who together with Nelson Mandela is widely regarded as South Africa's moral conscience, asked in a statement yesterday. "How can what is happening in Zimbabwe elicit hardly a word of concern let alone condemnation from us leaders of Africa?" The bishop, who once described Mr Mugabe as either "mentally deranged" or "a cartoon figure of an archetypal African dictator," said all leaders in Africa should condemn the Zimbabwe government. Dr Tutu seemed to have been particularly angered by the South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has not commented on this week's turmoil in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki has instead deferred commenting to his deputy foreign minister, Aziz Pahad, who has called on Zimbabwe's opposition to create "an environment conducive to dialogue". The implication being that Mugabe would love to talk if they would simply stop being so unreasonable. It's a horrendous abdication of responsibility. And coming from South Africa, a country that knows more than any other what it is like to be suppressed, it is beyond shameful.

Mbeki is a disgrace.

And throughout all this, Zimbabwe now stands on the brink of collapse. Inflation is currently running at 1,700% a year. More than 3 million Zimbabweans have left. The middle class have been destroyed, their savings wiped out by the savage inflation which has gripped the fastest shrinking economy in the world.

Mr Mugabe has hailed the violent seizure of white-owned farms that were once crucial to feeding the country, and their redistribution to small scale black farmers and the ruling party elite, as "completed successfully". He declared that the farmers have produced a "bumper harvest". Zimbabwe's president has also boasted that the economy is being wrestled from foreign control and his finance minister predicted economic growth this year.

But the reality was described by Mr Mugabe's ally, the reserve bank governor, Gideon Gono, who told parliament he is struggling to keep electricity on. He said there is no money to keep air force planes in the air, or to put unserviceable police cars back on the road. And 300,000 people are waiting for passports because there is no paper or ink to issue them.

Mr Gono warned that inflation could drive Zimbabwe's economy down "to levels never dreamt before". The International Monetary Fund predicts that prices could rise by 4,000% this year.

The reserve bank governor said he received constant pleas from food and petrol distributors, the national airline and the railways for foreign currency that has all but dried up because tobacco exports, once Zimbabwe's biggest source of US dollars, have fallen to a fifth of what they were before the land seizures. The other big earner, tourism, has also collapsed.

Mr Gono said the power company warned him: "If you don't give us money the nation will be in darkness."

Zimbabwe now produces less than half the maize it needs to feed its population. And any food aid that the international community provides is distributed strictly on a political basis, depending on whether you are a supporter of Mugabe or not.

"The lorry comes and it doesn't have enough so they say they are giving it to the people with Aids," said Mr Ntzombane. "But we look at who gets it and we know it is political. They want to punish us for not supporting Mugabe."

The situation in Zimbabwe is so blatantly horrendous that one would think international condemnation would be ear-splitting. However, thanks to the west's past in that country, especially the past of the UK, Mugabe has been very successful at writing off any criticism as imperial interference. Which is why the opinion of South Africa is so important. South Africa is another African nation who managed to break free from the oppression of white rule: if they were to criticise Mugabe, they would carry a force that no western criticism could possibly match.

Which is why Mbeki's silence is such a disgrace. And why I say, thank God for Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Facts of life

37 Life expectancy at birth in Zimbabwe

60 Average life expectancy in 1990

81 The infant mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births), compared with 53 in 1990

$340 The national income, per person, compared with $4,960 in South Africa

5.5m Zimbabweans live with HIV

1.1 m Children have been orphaned by Aids

6 People out of every 100 have a phone, compared with 47 in South Africa

56% Of the population earn less than $1 a day, compared with 11% of South Africans

· Source: Unicef

Click title for full article.

Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Mbeki, Tutu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa, Aids, starvation