Robert Mugabe...a name synonomous with feckless and corrupt despotism, is at it again. According to the Times, he and his wife recently purchased a luxury apartment, valued at almost US$6m in Hong Kong. Why does this enrage me?
In addition, the President's wife, Grace Mugabe, has recently embarked on a spending spree. She reportedly spent over $80k on marble statues in Vietnam and $12k on a handbag in Singapore. All of this despite the fact that Zimbabwe is in a huge economic crisis. The country has an inflation rate gauged to be close 231m % (that's 231,000,000%), and an unemployment rate hovering above 90%.
In short, the Mugabes epitomize all that is wrong with African dictatorships. Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa as late as the 1990s. The country produced a surplus of food and supplied its neighbours with a significant quantity of their food. All of this has changed and what was once a thriving country is now bereft of food, clean water, and hope.
According to Robert Mugabe, this is all the fault of colonialism and the West. I am often outspoken about the horrors of colonialism and how a significantly high percentage of problems on the African continent stem from the colonial era. I have also argued that this era has not completely ended and that neo-colonialism is an even more sinister force than colonialism was. Mugabe argued that the white Zimbabweans, who owned most of the farms in country, came by these farms illicitly and therefore the farms could be seized and given to the "war veterans."
Personally, I agree that the land in Zimbabwe needed to be re-distributed. However, that desire to have Africa for Africans needed to be developed by meeting the needs of Africans. Mugabe's blatant land grab did not satisfy the desire of the masses for land and only served to plunge his country into a desperate state. What is little known is that Mugabe has seized many farms that were black owned as well. Many of the farms seized by Mugabe and his cronies were purchased legally, under Zimbabwean law (as opposed Rhodesian law) by people who had a vested interest in the upliftment of Zimbabwe. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Robert and Grace Mugabe.
What is really upsetting about this latest episode in Zimbabwe involving the mis-use of state funds by Robert and Grace Mugabe is that in the midst of this crisis, people are dying simply because of the government's inability to purchase water-treatment chemicals. Mugabe is pillaging the treasury of a country where over 3500 people have died because of a cholera outbreak...a preventable disease that is occuring in Zimbabwe because the country does not have enough money to buy the chemicals to treat the drinking water.
Where are the morals in this? How can Robert and Grace Mugabe wake up each morning and look in the mirror knowing that their actions, greed, and corruption are directly leading to corpses strewn around the country. This is a mot juste example of how African leaders have mis-managed their countries post colonialism, and has directly contributed to the dire poverty that currently exists on the continent. Mugabe needs to honestly look at himself and find a way to step aside and let someone with morals lead Zimbabwe back to where it was a decade ago.
