Smash hit

In the rural areas, which have been badly affected by drought, the suffering is even more acute. Near Chivi, in the southern Masvingo province, a bumpy dirt road cut through parched countryside. Cows, their ribs pressing through skin pulled taut, chew leaves off trees; there is no grass. Many cattle have perished. Their owners may not be far behind. “People are not starving yet,” said Alfred Matewe, 39, a short, barefoot man with a grey-flecked beard and heavily patched trousers. “But they will be if the rains don’t come soon.”

But rain will not solve the food crisis. A shortage of seed and fertiliser — and money to buy them — mean next year’s harvest could be one of the worst. Aid agencies believe that more than three million people will need feeding by March. The Government, in denial over the scale of the problem, is reluctant to let food relief in.

The hardship is tearing at the social fabric of a country where the life expectancy is now just 37. Everisto, an unemployed man in Mashonaland East who asked for his surname not to be used, said: “People don’t communicate anymore. When you try to talk to your neighbour they say, ‘What do you want? We have our own problems’.”

Such as finding money for school fees. Public boarding schools have said that they will increase their fees by 500 per cent next year, and parents organisations have given warning of a new surge of dropouts. Many children already rush from school to help their unemployed parents to earn money — something that has become much harder since government action against illegal trading and dwellings.

The brutal police operation, known as Operation Murambatsvina (Sweep out the rubbish), left 700,000 without homes or work. Operation Hlalani Kuhle (Live well), meant to provide legal homes and formal markets, has barely begun, and the ban on vending is still being ruthlessly enforced.

Newspaper boys selling mobile telephone charge cards are frisked and their stock is confiscated; women selling a few tomatoes and eggs are hauled off to police stations.

Esnat Marowa, who tries to make a living as a seamstress in the Mabvuku township, said: “If they hear your sewing machine going grrrr grrrr in your house, they come inside and say, ‘What are you doing?’. If they see a pile of things, they take it.” Another resident said: “When you see police come, you know in their homes they are hungry.”

In the state media — which now include the Daily Mirror, furtively purchased with public money by the Central Intelligence Organisation — the ruling Zanu (PF) party leaks stories of hope: that recent uranium finds will help to boost the rural electrification programme, that Zimbabwe can host the 2010 African Nations Cup, that a Stalin-type command agriculture will help to utilise idle land, that petrol will arrive “within days”. Most ordinary Zimbabweans, beaten down, despondent and dismayed by the infighting in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, seem to have accepted their miserable fate.

The IMF has refused credit unless urgent economic reform takes place. Donor countries have long closed their wallets. Even China, to whom President Mugabe has turned with his Look East policy, has refused to bail Zimbabwe out. South Africa, which does not want its neighbour to collapse, will only loan money if there is political reform.

Near Chivhu, a government stronghold in central Zimbabwe, Nicodimus Joni, 43, a farmworker in tattered blue overalls and sandals made of old car tyres, waited for a lift to work. Closing his eyes, and slowly moving his head from side to side, he tried to find words to describe what was happening in his country.

“Ah, Zimbabwe,” he eventually sighed. “Zimbabwe is dead.”

THE FIGURES

• GDP has declined by 7.2 per cent this year, after a 4.2 per cent fall in 2004 and a 10.7 per cent fall in 2003
• Rocketing inflation, shortages of foreign exchange and a decline in farm output have led to shortages of basic goods, including diesel
• The economy has shrunk by 50 per cent since 1997, exports have fallen by two thirds and living standards have retreated to levels last seen in the mid-Fifties, according to estimates
• The IMF has forecast the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio will double to 14.2 per cent this year, from 7.1 per cent last year and 0.4 per cent in 2003
• Import volumes expected to drop by 11.9 per cent this year, from 5.8 per cent in 2004 and 19.9 per cent in 2003
• In 2000 primary crop production was estimated at 2.5 million tonnes of cereals in total compared with 1 million tonnes in 2003
• The IMF forecasts that inflation will reach 400 per cent by the end of the year. However, the Mugabe Government predicts that the economy will grow by 2 per cent this year

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