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Items About Areas That Could Break Out Into War
August 10, 2006: It now takes approximately 85 million Zimbabwean
dollars for a family of five to live each month. To say inflation has
savaged Zimbabwe doesn't begin to describe the situation.
Dictator Robert Mugabe is responsible for most of
Zimbabwe'seconomic misery, beginning with his farm expropriation
policies in 2000. Still the big numbers are fascinating. Annual
inflation, based onJuly figures, now runs at 990 percent. Based on June
figures it broke 1000 percent a year. It's likely that there will
1000 percent inflation for all of 2006.
Zimbabwe is now in the process of exchanging "old currency"
denominations for new ones. The government has lopped three zeroes off
current currency denominations. Essentially one US dollar was valued at
250,000 Zimbabwean dollars; that will now be one US dollar for $250
Zimbabwean dollars. Zimbabweans are supposed to finish exchanging
currency by August 21. The country is also facing widespread fuel
shortages.
Zimbabwean Army soldiers are deployed in the streets of Harare. There
are reports of soldiers beating up cab drivers. That seems to be a
complex story involving allegations by the Mugabe government that
"transport operators" (cabbies, bus drivers, etc.) are "sabotaging the
economy." There has also been a government drive to stop what it calls
"hoarders" and "illegal currency dealers." Zimbabwean military and
police have taken money from anyone they find carrying more than $400
(US) worth of Zimbabwean currency. They claim is they are cracking down
on speculators who stashed cash (ie, illegal cash) and are now trying
to spend it rather than exchange it.
The economic disaster continues as the battle to succeed Mugabe
proceeds with the ZANU-PF (Mugabe's political party). There are at
least two major camps in the ZANU-PF, one lead by Joyce Mujuru and the
other by Emmerson Mnangawa. (Joyce Mujuru, by the way, is married to a
former Zimbabwean Army general.)
Over the last year street violence has increased. Some of the violence
is gang related; with the economy in the sewer and inflation insane
there is no work. Unemployment estimates vary, but 70 percent
nemployment is a common figure. The constant fear among
ZImbabweans is a tribal war, particularly one pitting the Shona against
the Matabele.