Dearth of a Nation. Yet in today’s Zimbabwe what looms large is not paradise but famine. “The situation is deteriorating fairly rapidly,” says Kevin Farrell, country director for the U.N.’s World Food Program, reached by phone in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. He says that in any village right now, “you will see people clearly hungry.” The U.N. is appealing for $611 million worth of emergency aid for sub-Saharan Africa. Almost half of that is for Zimbabwe, the region’s former breadbasket, where aid workers now predict that without massive help, hundreds of thousands may soon starve to death. [Wall Street Journal]
This famine, which will affect neighboring countries that depended on food exported from Zimbabwe, is the result of Mugabe’s deliberate actions. There are some details in the article beyond the widely reported destruction of the farming industry–it seems Mugabe is blocking food imports as well. What is it with communist dictators and famine, anyway?
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