In Zimbabwe: lawlessness, massacre and the threat of extinction

Zimbabwe’s devastating cholera epidemic has killed 1,111 people since it began in early September and the World Health Organisation warned today that its worst-case scenario of 60,000 people infected was a distinct possibility.

The WHO reported that 133 more people died of the disease from Monday to Wednesday and that clinics and hospitals - controlled mostly by Western aid agencies - had dealt with 20,581 suspected cases.

The deaths shot up over the weekend when the disease hit the small town of Chegutu, about 100 km (60 miles) west of Harare, with 121 people dying in a matter of three days. “It was explosive,” said a doctor who asked not to be named. “There were bodies piling up on the floor. It was out of the Dark Ages.”

In neighbouring South Africa, the leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Jacob Zuma, ruled out any military intervention to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe.

When asked in an interview with South Africa’s 702 Talk Radio whether he favoured sending troops to Zimbabwe, Mr Zuma said: “No. Why military intervention when there is no war? We should be pressurising them to see the light.”

The situation in Chegutu stabilised after aid agencies rushed to the scene with disinfectants, saline drips, drugs and cleaning materials. But there is new alarm over rapidly depleting supplies, with Medicins sans Frontieres and the International Organisation of Migration warning that there was three weeks’ stock left.

Oxfam today launched an appeal for £4 million to help fight the epidemic. The national mortality rate for Zimbabwean women was 33 years, said Peter Mutoredzanwa, country director in Zimbabwe for Oxfam. “The tragic fact is that unless we respond now, many people will not see their thirties.”

The government continues to deny the extent of the epidemic. Today the main headline in the state-controlled Herald was, “Cholera cases on the decline,” and attributed the claim to the WHO. The organisation’s actual words were: “The devastating cholera epidemic continues to spread.”

Harare continues to be the centre of the epidemic, with 224 deaths and 9 072 cases - three quarters of which were diagnosed in the last 14 days. The situation has been exacerbated by a familiar Zimbabwean problem - a worsening shortage of Zimbabwe dollar bank notes means medical staff cannot withdraw their salaries from banks, so they cannot pay for transport to get to work at hospitals and clinics.

Mr Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party is going ahead tomorrow with the start of its annual conference, where 7,000 people are gathering in the small town of Bindura, 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital for a three-day jamboree.

The conference is being held at a local university, which was closed in October because water supplies had shut down and its toilets were blocked. Many of the delegates are to be accommodated in a nearby school which is also without water. ZANU (PF) spokesman Ephraim Masawi said delegates would not be allowed to bring in their own food. They would be given bottled water and water bowsers would be on hand.

“There’s a very big risk of cholera breaking out at the conference,” said a doctor working in a cholera clinic. “The first thing the ministry of health should be doing is discouraging big meetings.”

Meanwhile, hopes for a breakthrough in the political deadlock to ease the crisis remained as remote as ever, with ZANU (PF) and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change firmly at loggerheads over the implementation of a power-sharing agreement signed three months ago, despite a claim by Soiuth African president Motlanthe that a break through was imminent this week.

United States deputy assistant secretary of state Jendayi Frazer said: “We certainly think that the power sharing deal is on life support. It’s close to dead.”

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