"The southern African country is battling hyperinflation and has endured food shortages since 2000"

Checking in on Zimbabwe. From Reuters:

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By Paul Simao

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela, on Wednesday described Zimbabwe's government as illegitimate and said regional leaders had allowed hundreds of thousands of people to die needlessly in the African nation.( THANK GOD )

Zimbabwe is facing a humanitarian catastrophe as President Robert Mugabe and the opposition bicker over a stalled power-sharing deal. Rights groups say scores of opposition activists have been murdered, tortured and beaten.( TRUE )

"Any government that goes out and assaults its people, its citizens, it has lost completely any kind of legitimacy," Machel said at a news conference where Zimbabwean activists launched a hunger strike to pressure Mugabe and the SADC regional body.( GREAT )

Asked if the veteran Zimbabwean ruler, in power since independence in 1980, should step down, Machel said: "The people of Zimbabwe have already said so ... the ballot has spoken."( WOW )

The Mozambican-born Machel joined a growing list of prominent Africans who in the past year have criticised Mugabe's authoritarian rule or called for the removal of his government.

Mugabe lost the first round of a presidential election last year to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, but he won the second round overwhelmingly after Tsvangirai pulled out of the race, citing violence against his supporters.

For almost a decade South Africa and other nations in SADC (Southern African Development Community) have used quiet diplomacy to try to nudge( WITHOUT EFFECT ) Mugabe toward democratic reforms and halt Zimbabwe's meltdown.

An apparent breakthrough was reached last September when Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed to form a unity government, but the deal has unravelled over control of key ministries and many doubt it can be salvaged.

In the meantime, food shortages have worsened and the healthcare system has all but collapsed, exposing the population to diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cholera, which has killed more than 2,100( 2100 ) people in recent months.

Machel, who was barred from entering Zimbabwe on a humanitarian visit late last year, said hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved had the leaders of SADC taken stronger action to end the crisis.( YES )

"We trusted too long. It's time to tell our leaders we lay the lives of all those who passed on ... in the hands of the SADC leaders because they took responsibility to stop the mess there," she said.

Machel, however, said she would not join the hunger strike and rotating fasts, which are due to last for three months.

A total of 55 activists have joined the protest, according to Kumi Naidoo, one of the hunger strikers.

The protesters are demanding, among other things, that SADC recognise that Mugabe's government is illegitimate and a transitional authority be set up to implement the power-sharing deal if the deadlock continued past the end of February."( YES )

And more bad news:

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HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe faces another huge food deficit in 2009 due to continued falls in farm production, mounting political uncertainty and economic instability, a report by a farmers' union said on Wednesday.

The southern African country is battling hyperinflation and has endured food shortages since 2000, when President Robert Mugabe's government began seizing farms from whites to resettle landless blacks.( A TERRIBLE POLICY )

A power-sharing deal signed by Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai last September looks fragile due to bickering over control of key cabinet posts, dimming hopes the ruined economy will be rescued.

The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), which represents most of the few remaining white commercial farmers, said agricultural output would continue to fall sharply until the country's political crisis was resolved.

"Investment in agriculture is long-term and its risk factor very high, therefore under the present unstable conditions prevailing in Zimbabwe at the moment, production in all sectors is expected to be extremely low this season," the CFU said in a report.

The CFU added that the economic meltdown had also hit farm operations.

"The super-hyperinflation prevailing in the country and the unavailability of cash from the banks has also impacted negatively on any meaningful production this season," the union said.

The last official inflation rate, for July last year, stood at 231 million percent.

Donor agencies say more than 5 million Zimbabweans, almost half the population, currently rely on food handouts and expect the number to rise following another poor agricultural season.

The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) says its $140 million emergency food aid appeal for Zimbabwe has come up $65 million short.( NOT GOOD )

The CFU said continued disturbances on farms, where some white farmers are still being forced off land or prosecuted for failing to do so( THIS NEEDS TO BE CONDEMNED ), had also hit production.

Less than 500 white farmers remain active on their farms, down from over 6,000 before the land seizures began.( THIS HAS WORKED WELL )

Mugabe's government has said it would press on with the prosecution and eviction of white farmers still on land earmarked for acquisition, despite a ruling by a regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) tribunal stopping such action( UNREAL ).

Critics say Mugabe's land policies have ruined Zimbabwe's once prosperous economy, but the veteran ruler says the seizures were meant to reverse colonial land imbalances."( WHAT A DISASTER MUGABE HAS BEEN. )

Mugabe should be condemned by the entire planet.

"she wanted their farm and intended to get it through the government’s land redistribution program."

More on Zimbabwe from the NY Times by CELIA W. DUGGER:

"CHEGUTU, Zimbabwe — Edna Madzongwe, president of the Senate and a powerful member of Zimbabwe’s ruling party, began showing up uninvited at the Etheredges’ farm here last year, at times still dressed up after a day in Parliament.

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The New York Times

Several farms in Chegutu have come under assault.

Mr. Freeth circulated photographs of his injuries online after the invasion of his farm.

And she made her intentions clear, the Etheredges say: she wanted their farm and intended to get it through the government’s land redistribution program( I DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS POLICY AT ALL. THIS ARTICLE GIVES ONE REASON. CRONYISM. IF THERE NEEDS TO BE REDISTRIBUTION, IT SHOULD COME THROUGH TAXES ON THE FARMERS WHICH THEY CAN AFFORD ).

The farm is a beautiful spread, with three roomy farm houses and a lush, 55,000-tree orange orchard that generates $4 million a year in exports. The Etheredges, outraged by what they saw as her attempt to steal the farm, secretly taped their exchanges with her.

“Are you really serious to tell me that I cannot take up residence because of what it does to you?” she asked Richard Etheredge, 72, whose father bought the farm in 1947. “Government takes what it wants.”

He dryly replied, “That we don’t deny( WELL PLAYED ),” according to a transcript of the tapes.

Mr. Etheredge this year became one of dozens of white farmers to challenge the government’s right to confiscate their land, and they sought relief in an unusual place: a tribunal of African judges established by the 15 nations of the Southern African Development Community regional trade bloc.

The case is rooted in one of the most fraught issues facing not just Zimbabwe, but other nations in the region, especially South Africa: the unjust division of land between whites and blacks that is a legacy of colonialism and white minority rule( AGAIN, USE TAXES ).

But the tribunal’s recent ruling, in favor of the white farmers, is also a milestone of particular relevance to Zimbabwe. It suggests that a growing number of influential Africans — among them religious leaders and now jurists — are confronting Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s 84-year-old liberation hero and president, for his government’s violations of human rights and the rule of law( FINALLY ), even as most regional heads of state continue to resist taking harsher steps to isolate his government.

Zimbabwe’s handling of the land issue has had disastrous consequences. Since 2000, when Mr. Mugabe began encouraging the violent invasion of the country’s large, white-owned commercial farms — once the country’s largest employers — food production has collapsed, hunger has afflicted millions and the economy has never recovered( WELL DONE ).

Mr. Mugabe presents this redistribution as a triumph over greedy whites( THAT DESTROYED FARMING IN THE COUNTRY. A GOOD TRADE-OFF? ). But it set off a scramble for the best farms among the country’s ruling elite, who often had little knowledge or interest in farming, and became a potent source of patronage for Mr. Mugabe. His own relatives, as well as generals, judges, ministers and members of Parliament, were beneficiaries, farmer and human rights groups say.

By this year, the number of white-owned commercial farms dwindled to about 300 from 4,500. Even many of the remaining ones came under assault in this year’s bloodstained election season.

Among those singled out were farms here in Chegutu, where some owners had dared to take their cases to the S.A.D.C. tribunal, challenging Mr. Mugabe before judges he could not entice with gifts of land.

In March, the tribunal ordered the Zimbabwean authorities not to evict any farmers seeking legal protection, pending resolution of the case. But as with other international efforts to influence Mr. Mugabe and his allies, Zimbabwean authorities apparently decided to ignore the tribunal’s order( OF COURSE ).

On June 17 — just 10 days before the discredited presidential runoff between Mr. Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai — dozens of youths led by a man named Gilbert Moyo surrounded Mr. Etheredge’s son, Peter, 38, at the main gate of the farm, family members said.

“Moyo told me he’d been sent by Edna,” Peter recalled, referring to Mrs. Madzongwe, the Senate president. Peter said Mr. Moyo threatened to kill him if the Etheredge clan did not clear off the farm immediately.

Peter, his twin, James, and their families fled.

Mrs. Madzongwe denied hiring Mr. Moyo and his gang. “If a farm is acquired, there are rules,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “I go by the book.”

But Jason Lawrence Cox, a local farmer, swore in an affidavit that he saw her on June 21 drive past piles of the Etheredges’ belongings, dumped at the side of the road, and onto their farm.

The gang had looted the three family homes on the farm of all but the large mounted heads of an eland and a kudu, according to photos taken before and after the invasion. They used a jackhammer to break through the foot-thick wall of the walk-in safe. The haul from the homes and the farm included 1,760 pounds of ivory, 14 handmade guns, 14 refrigerators and freezers, 5 stoves, 3 tractors, a pickup truck and 400 tons of oranges, the family said.

Eleven days later, a far more violent farm invasion occurred at the home of Mike and Angela Campbell, also here in Chegutu. Mr. Campbell, 76, was the first farmer to take on Mr. Mugabe before the tribunal.

A gang came that Sunday afternoon, pouring out of a pickup truck and a bus, Mrs. Campbell said. Her son-in-law, Ben Freeth, 38, said that he was bludgeoned with rifle butts and that his skull and ribs were fractured. Mike Campbell was also severely beaten.

Mrs. Campbell, 66, said she was dragged by her hair, after her arm was broken in multiple places, and dumped next to her husband. The doctor who treated them in the capital, Harare, signed affidavits confirming the severity of their injuries.

“Mike was so battered, I hardly recognized him,” Mrs. Campbell said. “I didn’t know he was alive until he groaned.” The three of them were loaded into the Campbells’ truck and driven to a nighttime vigil of youth loyal to the ruling party at Mr. Moyo’s base camp, she said.

It was cold, and men poured freezing water over them. Mr. Campbell drifted in and out of consciousness. By the flickering light of bonfires, the youths denounced the Campbells as white pigs, Mrs. Campbell said, and ordered her to sing revolutionary songs. She remembers singing a children’s song instead, which enraged one of her intoxicated tormentors. He charged at her, she said, trying to thrust a burning stick into her mouth.

Later that night, the Campbells and Mr. Freeth were again stuffed into the back of the Campbells’ truck. Before they were dumped, Mrs. Campbell said, the kidnappers insisted that she sign a paper promising not to press the tribunal case.

Within days — just as the international outcry mounted over the state-sponsored beatings of thousands of opposition supporters — photographs of the grotesquely battered faces of the Campbells and Mr. Freeth circulated on the Internet.

By July 4, the police informed the farmers here who were part of the tribunal case that they could go back to their land. Peter Etheredge speculated that the authorities might have relented because the photographs were spreading online just as Mr. Mugabe was meeting with Africa’s leaders about his country’s political crisis.

On Nov. 28, the farmers gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, to hear the final ruling of five judges of the S.A.D.C. tribunal. As Justice Luis Antonio Mondlane of Mozambique read the full 60-page decision aloud, it dawned on the farmers that they had won.

The tribunal found that the government had breached its obligations under the trade bloc’s treaty, which committed it to respecting human rights, democracy and the rule of law, by denying the farmers compensation for their farms and court review of the government’s confiscation of them.

More broadly, it rejected the government’s claim that the land redistribution program was meant to right the wrongs of a colonial era when a white minority ruled what was then Rhodesia. Instead, the court found that the government had itself racially discriminated against the white farmers.

In a stinging rebuke, the tribunal, citing an earlier legal case, said it would have reached a different conclusion( THIS IS SAD. LAND EXPROPRIATION DOESN'T WORK ) had the government not awarded “the spoils of expropriation primarily to ruling party adherents.”

The usually stoic farmers wept. “We burst into tears, the whole lot of us,” Mr. Freeth said.

The reaction of the government was defiant. Didymus Mutasa, the minister who oversees the distribution of seized land, told the state media that the judges were “daydreaming” if they thought Zimbabwe would heed the ruling.

The government would take over the rest of the white-owned farms, he vowed. And the state has since moved to prosecute four Chegutu farmers, though not yet the Etheredges or the Campbells, for illegally occupying land they owned before the government claimed it, the farmers’ lawyer, Dave Drury, said.

Perhaps it was a banner at the recent funeral of a ruling party boss that best captured the government’s rejection of those who question its righteousness, even a panel of distinguished African jurists.

The banner said: “The Rhodesian Tribunal Can Go to Hell( SAY HELLO TO MUGABE WHEN YOU GET THERE ).”

These Land Expropriations are a disaster. A tax, which farmers can afford, could have been used to provide a social safety net, loans to small businesses, education, etc. By the way, this historical righting of wrongs can easily spread to tribal conflicts, if it isn't humanely and legally dealt with.