Witnessing the decline of Zimbabwe
By Inka Kovanen
Last Christmas Birgit Kidd and her Zimbabwean husband Michael built a small castle out of banknotes. Each wall was about one metre high and a metre wide. The money was to pay the wages and Christmas bonuses of the sawmill owned by the Kidds.
The inflation that affects Zimbabwe might be seen as a joke, if it were not such a serious matter. In October inflation was officially 231 million per cent, but the real inflation rate is 1.4 trillion per cent, says Birgit Kidd, 67, sitting in the kitchen of her niece in Helsinki.
Kidd has lived in Zimbabwe with her husband since 1983. The two met in Kouvola, where Michael was a student.
In recent years Kidd has witnessed at close hand how Zimbabwe has fallen into deep misery. Ever since independence in 1980, the country has been led by the autocratic President Robert Mugabe, who has taken his country from prosperity to economic ruin.
Kidd, like some experts, compare the situation in Zimbabwe to that of a country that has undergone a war, even though there has been no fighting in the country for decades.
“Unemployment is over 80 per cent, schools have closed their doors, teachers have left the country, or they are on strike.”
Kidd's previous visit to Finland was two years ago. Since then, Zimbabwe has changed very much.
“The biggest change has been in the way the city looks. Stores have been closed, and large groups of people are wandering everywhere, because there is no fuel, and it is expensive to get a ride”, Kidd sighs.
Life expectancy in Zimbabwe has plummeted. For women it is 34 years, and for men it is 37. AIDS and other diseases claim victims, because of a shortage of both medicines and doctors.
Between three and four million Zimbabweans have left the country, most of them to get work in neighbouring South Africa or Botswana. The reduction in labour can also be seen at the sawmill owned by the Kidds.
“At the most, we had 50 people working. Now there are only 30. “Many have died of AIDS, although we try to take care of our workers.”
The UN’s World Food Programme (WPF) said on Tuesday that it was cutting food rations in order to be able to feed more people. According to the WPF, two million Zimbabweans received food aid in May, and by the end of the month there were five million who needed it.
Kidd has not watched the degradation in silence. In Chimarniman, the region where she lives, she works with the opposition party MDC, which won a majority of seats in the Parliament for the first time in the elections earlier this year.
Voters also cast ballots for the President, and according to most assessments, the winner was MCD Chairman Morgan Tsvangirai.
The party is now negotiating a power-sharing agreement with Mugabe’s Zanu-PF. Actually, agreement on the matter came already on September 15th, after pressure from abroad, but Mugabe still refuses to give the opposition any important ministerial portfolios to the opposition.
In spite of losing the election, Mugabe managed to turn things around so that he can remain in office.
“After the first round, we knew that Tsvangirai won. People were weeping with joy, and even large men were moved to embrace each other”, Kidd says.
“Then came grief and rage. We could not go onto the streets, because we knew who had the guns.”
Good news from Zimbabwe? In fact, there is some. The election campaign in Chimaniman was fairly peaceful, even though supporters of Zanu-PF wandered around at night, intimidating people.
“From February through the day before the elections on March 28th, I drove my open lorry around Chimaniman. There were always between 15 and 18 MCD members on board shouting slogans and singing.
Violence against the opposition has been going on for years, and the Kidds experienced some as well. In 2004 they were severely beaten.
After the elections people have had their faith renewed that the rest of the world had not forgotten them.
However, the fear has not gone away.
Kidd says that she sees people who wear the Zanu-PF shirt, but at close range they show the open palm of their hand - the sign of the opposition.
“Year after year I have been saying that next year everything will change. Zimbabwe is my home, and I need to be positive. But I doubt that I will see the day that the country is in good shape”, Kidd says. “Still I always say that your children might see it.”
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 12.11.2008
INKA KOVANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
inka.kovanen@hs.fi
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| 18.11.2008 - THIS WEEK |
 Witnessing the decline of Zimbabwe |
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