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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2008 - January 2009
World in View
Zimbabwe cholera
The deadly outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe, which has killed at least 600 people (possibly thousands) and spread to South Africa, Zambia and Botswana, illustrates both the depth of the social crisis in Zimbabwe and how inseperable it is from the whole region. Oxfam's Zimbabwe director stated, "More than 300,000 people seriously weakened by lack of food are in grave danger."
This epidemic is only the latest result of the total collapse of Zimbabwe's society under the Mugabe government. There is a lack of water treatment as supplies of needed chemicals have run out even in urban areas. In other cases, houses were built on land where the urban poor, mostly supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, had been "cleaned out." These houses were built without sewage, however, and the lack of sanitation has helped spread cholera.
Doctors and nurses in Harare have demonstrated against lack of funding and poor working conditions. They face shortages of drugs, basic equipment and even food. Their demonstration was broken up by heavily armed riot police.
A planned nationwide demonstration by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions was also broken up by police, with 69 activists being arrested. This action was to be directed at the limits on cash withdrawals from banks, a major problem when people are going hungry and can't take out enough of their own money to eat. (Inflation has reached a surreal 231 million percent annually.) Those arrested included leaders of the ZCTU, Progressive Teachers Union, Construction Union and civil groups.
Women of Zimbabwe Arise and other civic groups have called for a depoliticization of the crisis and designating it as a national disaster. This makes more sense than the idea of sharing power with Mugabe, who already represents a terrible, tragic caricature of the revolution.
Of course the most powerful and effective solidarity of all could come from the working class in South Africa. A small taste of this came last year when the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union refused to unload a shipload of armaments bound for Mugabe's regime.
--G.E.
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