Robert Mugabe, poised to steal another election, has led his nation to ruin.

[Mugu]

By Peter Godwin, March 25, 2008

Once it was Africa's shining city on a hill, a beacon of prosperity and economic growth in the gloom of a continent shrouded by poverty. Emerging in 1980 from a seven-year civil war against white settler rule, the newly independent nation of Zimbabwe embraced racial reconciliation and invited the country's whites (one in 20 of the population) to remain and contribute to the new nation.

I was one of those who gladly dismissed Rhodesia and became Zimbabwean. Upon the firm economic infrastructure he had inherited, Robert Mugabe, our first black leader, built a health and educational system that was the envy of Africa. Zimbabwe became the continent's most literate country, with its highest per capita income. Zimbabwe easily fed itself and had plenty left over to export to its famine-prone neighbors.

I remember crisscrossing the continent then as Africa correspondent for a British newspaper, and each time I returned to the newly renamed capital of Harare (previously it had been Salisbury), I was reminded that in comparison to what surrounded it, Zimbabwe was like Switzerland. The roads were well maintained, the elevators worked, electricity was constant, you could drink the water, the steaks were world-renowned. The Zimbabwe dollar was at near parity with its American namesake.

Fast forward to today, and the country is unrecognizable.

Zimbabwe now has the fastest-shrinking peacetime economy in the world. This week, one U.S. dollar (even in its newly enfeebled state) will fetch you 55 million Zimbabwe dollars on the street. Hyperinflation there has soared well above 100,000% -- way past what it was in the Weimar Republic, when Germans loaded up wheelbarrows with money to go grocery shopping. Zimbabweans must carry huge wads of cash around in shopping bags, and by the time they reach the checkout desk at the shortage-racked supermarkets, the prices have already gone up.


Complete article at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-godwin25mar25,0,7210173.story

[leftofthedial]

1. robert W mugabe?

[Nutmegger]

2. R&K

Thank you for posting.

[mainegreen]

3. What, 3 million extra ballots printed?

South Africa election monitors say no problem! Election looks like it's on track!

Somebody needs to kill the old man. He's already guilty of one mass murder in Zimbabwe, lets not let him get away with two.

[Squatch]

4. I've been 1/2-way following this over the past couple of years

I remember the knock-down drag-out fights here on DU where some people were absolutely ecstatic of Mugabe's "landowner reform" when he kicked out the evil white farmers and other DUers could nearly see the downfall of Zimbabwe that was to ensue. Good times...good times.

In any case, the past couple of years' events have really destroyed what I could only imagine was a wonderful country. It's a shame, considering that Rhodesia was considered the breadbasket of Africa.

[tom_paine]

5. Mugabe is more Bush than Bush!

Now there's something to be happy about. That Their Bush is Mugabe and that our Mugabe is BUSH. Yes, you heard me.

Dubya looks pretty good next to Mugabe, well somehwat better and much less violent.

So we've got THAT going for us.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Old boss meet the new boss.

The people of Zimbabwe traded in Ian Smith and colonialism for a new "leader". Woe unto them who "trust" ambitious politicians.