Torture, Inflation and Tension in Zimbabwe

In 1980 the existence of Southern Rhodesia, a British colony, was terminated and an independent country was formed. Its name was, and still is, Zimbabwe. Twenty-eight years before nowadays, a national hero contributed significantly to the country's independence and became its first president. This national hero, Robert Mugabe, is still alive which is nothing out of ordinary. What is out of ordinary is, he is still president of the country. In other words, he has been the first and the only president of Zimbabwe so far.

For today's political conceptions, such lengthy tenure is called dictatorship. Today's world hasn't heard of a country's most influential political position being occupied for such a long period of time by a person who turns out to not be a dictator regardless of how good the people live. However, without proving anything and just talking in general only, every statement is weak and not worthy of being paid attention to.

Without having read any books about the situation in Zimbabwe, I endorse the media's statement that it used to be one of the most powerful countries in Africa and that it has been technically ruined so far. The media sometimes tends to intentionally or unintentionally control, and thus distort, our idea of what is happening where and why. This time, however, there is no place for any doubt.

Economists know their job and their research is not based on hypotheses that everyone can make by just a snap. And, according to their research, for the last fifteen years or so Zimbabwe's economy has not only been in huge recession, it has also reached a devastating inflation of over 100000%, the world's highest, and it keeps growing every day.

Zimbabwe's economic situation is such that almost each of its citizens is billionaire not because Zimbabweans are as rich as Bill Gates is, but because the country's currency is so devaluated that Z$10 billion are times less valuable in Zimbabwe than $10 dollars are in the U.S. As a result, seeing a Z$10 billion banknote on the street without noticing anybody making a bare effort to grab it is not unusual, not to mention the fact that people die of hunger and AIDS and other illnesses.

I remember reading on the BBC's website about a Zimbabwean woman who complained of her salary being so insufficient that she could not buy anything besides a chewing gum.

Moreover, supply of goods in general is so scarce that entering a grocery store in search for food is next to ridiculous.

This is the result of Robert Mugabe's rule. The wretched condition of the economy started in the mid-1990s. Until then, analysts point out that Zimbabwe's economy used to be one of the best ones in Africa.

As a result of the hopeless situation in Zimbabwe, people want change. They want it even more desperately than Americans, who vote for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, do. There can't be a debate whether or not the Zimbabwean people need change: there is outrageous 80% unemployment in the country, not to mention the humiliating life expectancy of 37 years and, last but not least, absence of democracy.

This absence of democracy is often seen in beating up of opposition leaders and supporters. MDC, Movement for Democratic Change, leader Morgan Tsvangirai ran for president in 2002. He lost in a contest that international watchdogs called rigged. It was believed that Morgan Tsvangirai won the elections but Robert Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, rigged them. Mr. Tsvangirai has even been charged and acquitted with plotting to assassinate President Mugabe and was beaten severely by state police security forces.

Despite the uncomfortable conditions in his patrimony, Morgan Tsvangirai continued fighting. He decided to run for president again in this year's elections which started two months ago. Since then there is still no result in terms of who the new president is.

In the beginning there was a dispute between Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC), MDC and ZANU-PF. According to MDC, Mugabe had got 50.3% of the vote whereas ZANU-PF and ZEC pointed out that he had got less than 50% of the vote which calls for walk-off general elections for president.

There were several tortures toward MDC supporters reported so far in Zimbabwe, some of which resulted in death. The government's aim was clear - vote for Mugabe or risk jeopardizing your life. This was what MDC and the world community feared in the beginning, and unfortunately they turned out to be right. Mr Tsvangirai even received death threats as a result of which he went to South Africa, a country part of whose poor population, mainly Zulus, embarked on scaring away foreigners such as Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Nigerians and others who occupied jobs that they would occupy.

The run-off general elections for president in Zimbabwe are going to take place in the end of June and they are extremely important for the country. Having Mr. Mugabe as re-elected president of Zimbabwe will most likely bring the country to greater inflation, poverty and possibly isolation from the rest of the world with few exceptions. Having Mr. Tsvangirai as elected president may not necessarily bring change but vague future is way better than predicted failure. However, no matter what the final result of the run-off elections is, it will not be as genuine as it should be thanks to Robert Mugabe and his party's interior politics of fear.

South African Unrest the Result of the Overall Tension in the Region

Africa - a continent where many wars have taken place and where many wars still take place like the one in Sudan. I have never been to Africa but every time I read something about this particular continent, it is either connected with lack of democracy, or with poverty and meager chances for a positive change. A good support of my statement is that all of the ten poorest countries in the world are located in Africa and also that most of the countries in the list of HIPC, that is, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, are African.

The countries in the list of HIPC are so heavily in debt that they can never return the money they were given by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other organizations. Moreover, the money and any other kinds of international aid do not make a great difference because of corrupt governments, unequal distribution of basic needs among the population and so on.

What we see nowadays in Africa, its southern part in particular, through the media is the result of all this chaos. Lack of basic needs such as food, huge inflation of over 100000% in Zimbabwe, central governments' irresponsible attitude toward the different issues and last but not least - high percentage of unemployment - inevitably lead to desperation.

This desperation reached its peak, or at least I see it as a peak, about a week ago in South Africa which is, in my opinion, one of the most stable countries in the Dark Continent despite difficulties that it experiences. According to BBC, unemployment rate is 30% in South Africa and there are 3-5 million foreigners mainly from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Nigeria of 49 million people as total population. Not surprisingly, the unrest is caused by the poor unemployed South Africans. Mobs of them managed to commit several murders of different kinds, thefts, rapes of women, shoplifting and destruction of shops owned by foreigners, robberies and other crimes all of which are specifically targeted to foreigners, especially to the ones who come from hopelessly impoverished Zimbabwe.

Both of the sides, that of the South African xenophobes and that of the foreigners, make points that are worth hearing by the world community. I will begin with the foreigners' situation. They come from different countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Somalia, Tanzania, Nigeria and other countries and they occupy jobs that some South Africans seek. Of course, they do not come to the Rainbow Nation just to deprive local people of job opportunities in the latter's patrimony. In fact, I see almost no difference between those foreigners and the ones who come to the United States and Western Europe from Eastern Europe except for the difference in salaries being given. This difference is greater in Africa than in Europe and the United States.

Even if we ignore the fact that the situation in Zimbabwe is worse than we have ever expected, the money a Zimbabwean could make in South Africa for a single day is worth the money the same person could make in Zimbabwe for a year or even more than a year. I remember reading what a Zimbabwean woman in Zimbabwe said in a news website about a couple of months ago, that is, days before the elections there which aren't over yet and which I will analyze in another article.

She said that the money that she made for a month was enough for a chewing gum only. Adding the fact that one in four Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe has a job makes it unthinkable to assume that they wish to remain in a country where if you are not member of the ruling ZANU-PF party, you are deprived of certain privileges there called basic needs throughout the world.

There are similar problems in Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia and other African countries. I do not think that those foreigners are to be blamed for taking jobs from South Africans, neither do I think that South Africans are to be blamed for anything different from the violence that they have caused for the last seven days or so.

After all, they are citizens of the country. I am a strong believer of the statement that a country's government should take care of its citizens in providing them with basic needs and job opportunities to begin with. Without reading too much about the situation in South Africa, I can't help but think that Thabo Mbeki's cabinet has not provided its citizens with as equal job opportunities as possible compared to what foreign citizens find.

As a result, some South African citizens begin to see themselves as foreigners in their own country. It turns out to be that recent days have reached the peak of their dissatisfaction. Since they cannot change their fate peacefully by having their country find jobs for them, they do what every mass does - cause chaos and kill those foreigners who occupy jobs that they believe they would occupy: a means of frightening the foreigners and making them want to leave the country. The poor and jobless xenophobe South Africans are really starting to reach their goal. Some Zimbabweans in the Rainbow Nation really want to go back to Zimbabwe despite the serious situation in their patrimony where Robert Mugabe's iron grip continues to strangle the local population.

What should be done in order to not just eliminate this chaos but prevent tension in the future as well? The first thing that Pretoria has to do is tighten customs control of the borders. That does not necessarily mean that the government should build walls like the federal government of the United States does to its border with Mexico. Mobilizing customs officers could turn out to be enough.

Then, the least the South African government could do is deport illegal immigrants just like Spain did 2-3 years ago when there was a great influx of Senegalese people packed on boats heading to the country's southern lands. Politicians' campaign sponsors may happen to not be pleased with such move most likely because of their hiring foreigners as cheap tax-free labor. However, it will very likely lead to the country's interior security which is one of the most important issues in every country.

Besides, in my opinion, politicians and campaign contributors could arrange a certain decrease of taxes and at the same time hiring Zulus and other rioters for a minimum wage officially whereas paying them a little bit more unofficially. You may think that this is fraudulence toward the country but I see it as one of the few paths to eliminating the current problem for a very long time. This possible fraudulence could be eliminated in the long run but calculations are rather complicated in terms of how and when it will be eliminated. It does not depend on South Africa only but on the region's events, gas prices and so on.

In general, I believe that tightening control of the borders - especially the one with Zimbabwe, and sufficient decrease of income taxes and property taxes should solve the problem in the Rainbow Nation. Of course, I do not say that this is the only path to solving it but that is what I think that Thabo Mbeki and his administration should do along with the legislature's support.

Serbian Elections Evaluated

Today's general parliamentary elections in Serbia were crucial for the country. Everybody who has been following the issues in the Balkans knows the meaning of this statement. It is not another cliché statement about elections in a country - Serbian citizens had an abundance of parties to choose from with three of them being the major competitors but only two paths for the future.

Those two paths lead to exact opposite directions - either east to Russia, a Serbian ally, or west to the European Union, whose majority of countries has already recognized Kosovo's unilateral Declaration of Independence. Predictions were that Tomislav Nikolic's Radical Party would win the elections and form a pro-Russian government along with possible coalition partners one of which was believed to be Vojislav Kostunica's Serbian Democratic Party.

Despite those predictions, however, President Boris Tadic's Coalition for a European Serbia have won the elections with a substantial lead: 39% to 28.6% for the Radicals and 11.6% for the Kostunca's bloc. It is still unclear, however, which party Boris Tadic is going to form coalition with for the sake of a pro-E.U. government. What is clear is that he is not going to form coalition with Tomislav Nikolic, and Vojislav Kostunica also rejected a possible alliance with the Coalition for a European Serbia. The two leaders are planning on forming a government with the Socialists who have been announced to have had 8.2% of the votes. This has been the Socialists' best result since the end of the Slobodan Milosevic's era.

Meanwhile, President Boris Tadic's Coalition for a European Serbia hopes that the Liberal Democratic Party will reach the 5% barrier so that the latter has representatives in the Serbian parliament. The Liberal Democrats, the only party that accepts Kosovo's independence, is close to those 5% and if they manage to reach it, it is very likely that they will try to form government with the Coalition for a European Serbia. Contrary to expectations that Boris Tadic is going to recognize Kosovo, the Serbian President denied such claims saying that he would never recognize Kosovo as an independent country.

The current political situation in Serbia reminds me of the last parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. Three years ago the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, could not form government with the Movement for Rights and Liberties, NMRL, and a triple coalition between the two parties and the then National Movement Simeon the Second, NMSS, had to be formed accordingly by the NMRL having been given the chance by President Parvanov. A similar scenario in Serbia may come true.

What conclusions are to be drawn from the elections in Serbia? Radicals threatened that voting for the Coalition for a European Serbia will be equal to recognizing Kosovo because of President Tadic's having signed a pre-membership agreement with the European Union last week. According to them, signing this agreement is technically a recognition of Kosovo - something that Boris Tadic completely denies. And it turned out that the Serbian people believed Mr. Tadic. They chose the path to the European Union instead of the one that leads to Russia. That does not make them traitors, neither do they recognize Kosovo.

The results are unfortunate for Russia. Another country's people prefers the West at its expense. Whether or not Russia is going to continue its good relations with Serbia is not entirely clear. I think that those relations will not deteriorate at all, neither will Russia change its position on the Kosovo's status for another conflict in the region is not beneficial to any country.

In terms of Serbia, in my opinion it will never recognize Kosovo - at least not until there are 100% Albanians there. A good example is the fact that despite the U.N.'s disapproval, they organized local elections in northern Kosovo where the majority is Serbian. Those local elections also caused demonstrations by Kosovo Albanians in Pristina but those demonstrations did not stop Kosovo Serbians from choosing their local leaders for the first time since the United Nations have taken the administration of the disputed territory.

Overall, I see a bright future for Serbia. By Serbia I mean Central Serbia and Vojvodina. Kosovo is another matter that I believe will not be resolved for years to come.