World Watch -- Zimbabwe

Hello everyone, sorry posting has been sporadic during the last month and a half. In any case, I am starting a new periodic series in the blog called "World Watch," which will highlight news from around the world you may find intriguing or valuable, but possibly under-reported, especially here in the west.

Today after church, as I was driving home, I was listening to AfroPop Worldwide, a radio program on NPR that focuses on the music of Africa, much of which is quite beautiful.

In between songs from Madagascar and Zimbabwe, host Georges Collinet delivered some sad news from Zimbabwe.

As I had already known, the nation is ruled by strongman Robert Mugabe, who has overseen the descent of the Zimbabwe economy from among Africa's strongest into a decrepit morass. Inciting racial strife, he has taken--by force--white-owneed farms, and collectivized them, and agricultural output has been collapsed. Massive starvation has ensued. Unemployment is at 85%. Inflation is the highest in the world, reaching 11000% per annum this summer. Opposition political leaders have arisen, culminating in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which was defeated by Mugabe in 2002 in elections tainted by violence and oppression.

Collinet reported that Mugabe has now bulldozed the houses of MDC leaders in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. Some now estimate that the number of homeless is two million, out of a population of thirteen million. Many have fled into the countryside to relatives, and this is during the coldest winter in recent memory.

Pray for the people of Zimbabwe.

Photo caption: A demonstration at the Zimbabwe Embassy in Great Britain on August 12, 2006. (photo by TwoWings, license CC-BY-SA)