Zimbabwe on edge as inflation hits 1,000%

[Menydh]

Zimbabwe on edge as inflation hits 1,000%

The Scotsman
May 13, 2006

ZIMBABWE'S annual inflation rate topped 1,000 per cent in April, underlining the severity of an economic crisis analysts say could trigger protests against Robert Mugabe's government.

Zimbabwe, in its eighth year of recession, has the fastest shrinking economy of a country outside a war zone, according to the World Bank, and the highest inflation rate in the world.

The official statistics agency said yesterday the annual inflation rate hit a record 1,042.9 percent in April after rising 913.6 per cent in March.

"As expected, it's more doom and gloom," said John Robertson, a private economic consultant. "How do you start to explain a situation where you wake up to a new price almost every day? Many families are barely getting by; they are in a survival mode," he said.

Analysts say the president has dented Zimbabwe's investment image with his seizure of white-owned farms for blacks, and that government plans to acquire a 51 per cent stake in all foreign-owned mines will keep external funding at bay.

That has undermined the currency, fuelling an inflationary spiral which shows no sign of abating. Economists say the inflation rate could end the year at around 1,800 per cent.

Some shops no longer put prices on commodities, saving themselves the trouble of changing them every day. With a carton of orange juice costing 500,000 Zimbabwe dollars (£2.70) and a kilo of beef up to a million dollars, people carry their money in large bags even for simple shopping trips.

Analysts say most Zimbabweans are cutting down on basic necessities, with some families living on one meal a day.

"There is a lot of anger over the economic hardships, and if you combine this with the political conditions, we have an explosive social environment," said Eldred Masunungure, from the political science department at the University of Zimbabwe.

"We are right on the edge, and, politically, what is going to be interesting is how the government and the opposition are going to play the game."
The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it is organising peaceful anti-government marches to protest at Mr Mugabe's policies.

Mr Mugabe has warned MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai that he would be "dicing with death" if he tried to force a coup.

Mr Mugabe, 82, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has used tough security laws to curb protests and says the economy is a victim of sabotage by opponents of his seizures and land redistribution.

Critics blame the land reform programme for a 60 per cent drop in agricultural output since 2000, leading to a 35 per cent fall in gross domestic product.

In the first major violent protests over a sharp rise in college fees, police said students burned down a computer laboratory and classroom block at Bindura University in north-east Zimbabwe.

Mr Mugabe put his security services on high alert early this year over fears that bitter wage disputes, and school and consumer price rises amid the deepening economic crisis might spark demonstrations.

And in a measure clearly aimed at forestalling protests against his ruling ZANU-PF party, Mr Mugabe recently awarded civil servants, including security forces, a 300 per cent pay rise.


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[SelousScout]

Fortunately members of my family that were still there have just left. Unbelievable though. Really shows you how easily black governments destroy the legacy they have been left with. The "breadbasket" of Africa (thanks to white farmers), has now become one of poorest, barest countries in the world.
Let them rot, they dug themselves into this, let them die out and re-occupy, I say.

[Gil]

Originally Posted by SelousScout

Let them rot, they dug themselves into this, let them die out and re-occupy, I say.

I agree with the "let them rot" part but not with the "re-occupy" part: my country had a messy "de-colonization" process and in the end we lost much more than we ever gained from those colonies. That and the fact that I wouldn't mind colonising empty/unoccupied land but any land with indigenous people is their own and not for the taking of others.

Oh, and "caucasian" isn't an ethnicity, it's a general term to describe any and all ethnicities which share some similar traits (aka Race). By your information I would think you are, ethnically, Anglo-saxon.

[svin]

That and the fact that I wouldn't mind colonising empty/unoccupied land but any land with indigenous people is their own and not for the taking of others.

Some lands are hardly occupied. For example, Russian Far East. There were/are indigineous tribes, but their population is very small.

[Gil]

Originally Posted by svin

Some lands are hardly occupied. For example, Russian Far East. There were/are indigineous tribes, but their population is very small.

Yes, but imagine that russian families from moscow start to "colonise" that region and slowly the indigenous tribes begin to lose territory; in the end that means that their ethnical group will either mix and disappear or survive as a "curiosity" in a reservation or something similar.

[Menydh]

In my opinion the occupation of the Asian parts of the Russias obeys to a logic. That of providing a buffer space for protection from Eastern Asia.

This should have been the natural thing to happen in Spain, to expand towards Northern Africa. And it would have happened had it not been because instead of realizing the marriage between the son of King João of Portugal, and the daughter of King Ferran (Fernando, Ferdinand) of Aragon-Catalonia and Isabel of Castille, we had a marriage of the other daughter with an Habsburg. And therefore the resources of the Spains were diverted from her real interests to protect the dinastic interests of the Habsburgs in Central Europe.

When Castile finally conquered Granada --the last of the Moorish kingdoms in the Peninsula-- in 1492, people believed that the conquest would then continue through Northern Africa until reaching Byzantium.

[SelousScout]

Aha, many thanks for pointing that out, Manji.
Indeed, my ancestors are from Denmark (Jutland), so I assume Anglo-Saxon would be correct?

[Menydh]

Assuming Nordo-Germanic for all the English is a big mistake. Although a genocide of the native Britanii by the Angles occured when the Saxons, Jutes and other Nordo-Germanic marauders invaded, this genocide occured only in part, and it focused mainly in some areas.

The native Brythonic blood is still alive thanks to the resilience of the Welsh, Cornish and perhaps Cumbrians and some other small areas.