Here's more from Daily Telegraph
The Zimbabwean state is shutting down
Posted By: David Blair at Dec 2, 2008 at 17:46:05 [General]
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents
Tags:Harare, President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
For the last three days, small groups of Zimbabwean soldiers have run amok on the streets of Harare, robbing and assaulting passers-by. The troops have been incensed by the fact that banks will not allow them to withdraw their meagre wages - rendered still more meagre by hyperinflation.
Soldiers take clothing from a smashed shop window in Harare
The banks are so short of cash that they prevent customers from taking anything more than derisory sums from their accounts. So far, the sporadic unrest does not amount to an organised mutiny.
But it points to an immensely significant development inside President Robert Mugabe's crumbling domain: the Zimbabwean state itself is steadily disintegrating. One of the highest rates of inflation in world history has wiped out the value of the national currency. Anyone who gets their wages in Zimbabwe Dollars is, in reality, paid nothing at all.
So Mr Mugabe's bankrupt regime has effectively given up paying its civil servants, teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen and soldiers. Anyone in the army above the rank of Captain is protected by special perks and the chance to obtain US Dollars at preferential rates. But the great majority of public sector employees are, in effect, working for nothing.
Entirely understandably, fewer and fewer are bothering to turn up. Less than a third of Zimbabwe's teachers show up for work - and only 30 per cent of children are believed to be regularly attending school. The University of Zimbabwe has effectively closed its doors. So have the two biggest public hospitals in Harare. Government ministries are emptying out as fewer and fewer civil servants bother coming to work.
A western diplomat described visiting one department where the only people present were the minister himself and his private secretary. The rest of the building was empty, with some rooms lacking furniture or even light fittings.
The Zimbabwean state is shutting down before our eyes. There is a precedent for this. Congo under the disastrous rule of Mobutu Sese Seko saw its government ministries reduced to shells. There were still ministers with official cars - but the government itself stopped functioning. The same is happening in Zimbabwe.
The central question is whether this headlong disintegration will finally shake Mr Mugabe's grip on power. But the comparison with Congo is not encouraging. By the late 1980s, its government had become a shell, but Mobutu managed to cling onto power until 1997.
We will now discover whether Mr Mugabe can manage the same feat and survive the implosion of the Zimbabwean state.
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