Zimbabwe continues its slide toward destruction. In the most recent outrage, President Robert Mugabe has evicted tens of thousands of traders from their shacks and razed their houses. It is hardly a coincidence that this "cleanup campaign" targets supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Following Mr. Mugabe's theft of March parliamentary elections, the rule of law in Zimbabwe is largely fiction. Without some form of pressure, Mr. Mugabe will continue to rule the country as a fiefdom, condemning millions to hunger and starvation and the nation to anarchy.
Zimbabwe has been lurching toward chaos since 2000, when President Mugabe began the appropriation of farms of whites, nominally to give to black Zimbabweans but in reality to hand over to his political cronies. The result has been a disaster. The country that was once the breadbasket of southern Africa now cannot feed itself. It is estimated that some 3.3 million people did not get the food they needed in the first quarter of 2005.
The food shortages are part of a more general economic collapse. The economy is estimated to have shrunk by about 50 percent since 2000. Unemployment in Zimbabwe is thought to have reached 70 percent. Inflation in April was 130 percent per year, the highest in the world, but a fraction of the 623 percent recorded in January 2004. The national currency was devalued by 31 percent in May.