Torture and famine are the order of the day in Zimbabwe and the man who is largely responsible, President Robert Mugabe, is running an openly racistre-election campaign. Declan Walsh reports from Harare
The embattled Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was hot on the campaign trail last week as polling in the fiercely - and increasingly violently - contested elections draws near. Although he is close to 80, the former guerrilla fighter still pulls no punches against perceived enemies at home at and abroad.
At rallies around the country he railed against Tony Blair and other Britons - who he claims want to recolonise Zimbabwe - for "poking their pink noses in our business". Let them "go to hell", he said, along with their "stooges" in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Mr Mugabe's increasingly popular challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, was picked up by police on Monday and charged with treason. Or so it seemed. The evidence that the MDC leader wanted to assassinate the president was a blurry, heavily edited video-tape produced by an Israeli public relations guru employed by Mr Mugabe. By yesterday the government was claiming that no charges had been preferred.
But for the majority of Zimbabweans, Mr Mugabe's fiery rhetoric fails to address the issues that worry them most - jobs, money and mealie meal. "Ah, we don't bother about such things," said mother of five Pauline Matongo, when asked about the alleged assassination plot. "We just want mealie meal. We want food to eat."
Mealie meal is a ground maize flour used to make sudza, a cheap, slightly stodgy, meal which is the staple diet of every working- class family. The shortage of this white flour - and not the debate over white neo- colonists - is undoubtedly the most pressing issue for most Zimbabweans.
The country needs 5,000 tonnes of maize every day but the national grain reserves have run empty. The government has little hard cash to buy more from outside, so from dawn every day long queues form outside supermarkets where desperate shoppers hope to buy a packet of mealie meal to feed their families. For many, it's a long, hot and often fruitless wait. Even worse, some government favourites turn up last but are served first.
Mrs Matongo was standing at the back of a supermarket in Newlands, a wealthy Harare suburb. At the front of the shopping centre, affluent, mainly white Zimbabweans sipped coffee or ate pizzas on a terrace lined with cafés and bars. But around the back of the TM supermarket, approximately 200 black people - mostly domestic workers - were jostling for position in a line for mealie meal.
A pick-up truck pulled into the yard at about midday. The outside gates creaked as the hungry crowd surged forward. Suddenly, a group of 25 uniformed men - from the police, the army and the prison service - appeared from around a corner. They organised the crowd into two orderly lines but first bought enough mealie meal to feed themselves.
Security guard David Sigauke managed to sneak into the "private" line of civil servants at the side entrance to the delivery yard. "They've all bought theirs already," he confided in a whisper afterwards. Of the 80 bags on sale fewer than 60 went to customers. The remainder went to the soldiers, policemen and prison guards, who also benefited from a 100 per cent pay rise in January. Everyone else went home empty-handed and hungry.
Electronics technician Richard Makunyi had taken the day off work to join the queue. "Yes, it is terrible," he said as he walked away, "but people are afraid to express what is in their hearts because they can be beaten."
The food woes stem partly from natural factors such as drought but are largely a result of Mr Mugabe's ruinous economic policies. The seizure of white-owned farms over the last two years has both scared off foreign investors and dramatically slashed the national maize harvest.
Factories are closing, the economy is in freefall - it contracted by almost 8 per cent last year - and inflation is currently running at over 100 per cent. The Zimbabwean dollar, which officially trades at 55 to the US dollar, in reality sells for over six times that much on the black market.
"$500 used to buy a trolley full of shopping," said unemployed man Michael Ndoverove. "Now you can only get a bottle of cooking oil."
The extreme circumstances have sparked an unlikely consumer boom in the small middle and upper classes. Luxury car dealerships are selling out and property prices are skyrocketing as people with Zimbabwe dollars rush to beat the inflation trap. According to one property agent, a three-bedroom bungalow in an upmarket neighbourhood that cost Z$5 million one year ago is now going for Z$15 million ($48,000).
Zimbabwe, once considered to be a "bread basket" country, is facing into an unprecedented famine. According to aid agencies, up to 750,000 Zimbabweans are currently in need of food assistance. However the UN World Food Programme, the largest agency, can only feed 50,000 of them for now and that programme will shut down shortly pending the outcome of the elections.
All international staff are being temporarily pulled out.
President Mugabe has repeatedly assured voters that 200,000 tonnes of maize is on the way, but aid agency sources say that as little as 15,000 has actually arrived. Even worse, a burning drought that is affecting all of southern Africa now threatens to destroy the upcoming April harvest. So no matter who wins the elections, Zimbabwe will soon have to find large reserves of hard cash to fend off starvation.
Violence is also a pressing worry for the Zimbabwean electorate. At least 16 opposition supporters were murdered in January, a level of violence which continues daily.
The independent Daily News, whose premises have twice been firebombed, published a photo yesterday of a man who had the letters "MDC" carved into his back with a knife by Zanu-PF youths. The charred corpse of MDC activist Newman Bhebhe was also reported discovered. The notorious war veterans had abducted him. Others, including the president of the Civil Servants Employees Association and his wife, are still missing.
Obert, an MDC activist, was abducted in the northern town of Kachuta, 150 miles north of Harare, last Sunday. He was held overnight by war veterans and repeatedly tortured. He came to Harare yesterday morning to get medical treatment for extensive welts to his legs and groin.
"They brought me to a base where the commander was. He said 'your name has come up. We are told to kill you and show our leaders the head'." His torturers, who used a rubber whip cut from old car tyres, made him sing Zanu-PF songs and change their slogans. The MDC has completely stopped campaigning in that area.
Government gangs have been terrorising rural areas since before the 2000 parliamentary elections, which the MDC almost won, but now the fear has spread to the towns. In the Harare township of Mbare, seen as an MDC stronghold, few people were willing to speak to this reporter in the open.
An interview with a women queuing outside a supermarket was cut short after a crowd of young men gathered around and made threatening statements in the local Shona language.
"They say you are engaging in political discussions," said an employee of the nearby Spar supermarket. "People are afraid. Please, you must leave now."
According to analysts, the repressive measures may be a measure of Mr Mugabe's lack of confidence in election victory. In January he halved the number of polling stations in urban areas, where the opposition MDC enjoys most support. A raft of draconian legislation gives the government sweeping powers to control the electoral process and ban opposition rallies.
VARIOUS opinion polls have given the Mr Tsvangirai a generous lead over Mr Mugabe, although pollsters admit that gauging opinion accurately is difficult in such a tense environment.
Mr Mugabe will also be keeping a worried eye on events in Madagascar, an island nation off the coast of southern Africa. This week Marc Ravalomanana declared himself president after losing a December election to the incumbent, Didier Ratsiraka, that he claims was rigged. Mr Ravalomanana has been able to pull off the bold move thanks to massive public rallies all week in his favour.
Mr Mugabe may fear that he will also face a popular uprising if the electorate suspects widespread vote-rigging. Already the army leadership have stated they will not support a Tsvangirai victory, although according to some reports, the rank and file are divided in their support for the autocratic president.
Next weekend's poll is a key democratic test for Africa as well as Zimbabwe. Neighbouring countries such as Malawi, also headed by presidents of an autocratic bent, will be watching nervously. South Africans will be hoping that the crisis which has badly dented their own economy will soon be over.
In the end, the result may be determined by whether Zimbabweans' anger with their plummeting living standards is stronger than the bully-boy tactics of their government.
"For now people are quiet. They will never say the truth because they fear violence and death," said Lucia, a cleaning worker in Harare. "but on the election day, they will know what is in their hearts."
Some interviewees' names have been changed.