Mr. Mugabe’s decision to forbid a humanitarian visit by former US President Jimmy Carter, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela’s wife, was a measure of the Zimbabwean leader’s disdain for international opinion at a time when deepening hunger, raging hyperinflation, and the collapse of health, sanitation, and education services have crippled Zimbabwe. The Carter group said they had hoped to get a firsthand sense of the crisis and to assess the help the country needs. However, Mr. Mugabe himself said no.
The Carter group all expressed extreme disappointment that they were unable to talk to ordinary Zimbabweans about the deteriorating conditions in their country. The breakdown of Zimbabwe’s water and sanitation systems, which the government no longer has the cash to maintain due to hyperinflation, has led the cholera epidemic spilling over the border to South Africa now. Zimbabwe’s Health Ministry itself acknowledged last week that cholera had spread to 9 of the country’s 10 provinces. International health officials say the disease has sickened more that 6,000 people and killed almost 300.
Those 6,ooo people are the impoverished and starving Zimbabweans. Mr. Mugabe has been in power for 28 years and is known as the libertarian, and yet now his country is deteriorating so fast that a future for the country is hard to see. All Mr. Mugabe cares about is obtaining and keeping power. Since he has had this power for so long, he can pull all the strings to keep it. He is so distanced from the actually problems experienced by all other Zimbabweans. As the problems of Zimbabwe continue to spill over in other Southern African nations, it a wonder why all the governments do not rally together. They’re only option is to take action against Mugabe since any other foreign humanitarian group, like the Carter group, would be denied access to the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/world/africa/23zimbabwe.html?_r=1&ref=africa
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