Mugabe’s Regime Lays Waste to Buildings in New Terror Tactic

Harare – Until a few days ago, Mbare on the outskirts of Harare was Zimbabwe’s largest market, recommended in guidebooks for a lively afternoon visit, and also one of the capital’s oldest townships. Yesterday, along with much of the country, it looked like a place flattened by war.

Street after street had been turned into a battleground of twisted wreckage, torn wood and piles of broken bricks. Sirens wailed and plumes of smoke rose from the smouldering ground, in the midst of which stood the occasional wardrobe or iron bed-frame, all that remained of family homes.

A few figures picked among the debris like vultures, while others huddled in small dazed groups at the sides. Every so often, one of Zimbabwe’s new Chinese warplanes roared across the sky. All along the main road to the bus station were lines of people with their remaining belongings bundled on their heads, like refugees escaping from battle.

The perpetrator was not some enemy invader or even a rival ethnic group, but the embattled citizens’ own government.

Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian regime has chosen to consolidate its recent election victory by bulldozing homes and demolishing markets, leaving vast swathes of the capital and other cities in ruins and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees with neither shelter nor livelihood. Locals are calling it the Zimbabwean tsunami.

“This is Pol Pot style depopulation of cities,” said David Coltart, legal affairs spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). “It’s a sinister pre- emptive strike designed to remove the maximum possible number of people from urban areas to rural areas where they are easier to control.”

Operation Murambatsvina or “Clean Up the Filth” began with no warning two weeks ago when trucks of police and youth militia clad in brand new riot-protection gear arrived at Hatcliff, a shanty town. Stunned residents were ordered to leave and go back to the rural areas from which they came, as police began smashing their dwellings and a large local orphanage.

No, that's not it. They tried seizing the farms but that did not create wealth. They tried attacking suppliers and small traders as "profiteers" when they policies created shortages and shortages resulted in higher prices. Agricultural output has now completely collapsed. They need a work force in the countryside to get any food at all, and they sure as heck aren't going to work themselves. So, they drive people out of the cities, blaming them for too high demand from urban mouths rather than rural farming hands to supply them. They are trying to create any rural population again, to get any agricultural output again. Not understanding anything about how economies work, they never reach for a carrot without screwing things up. So it is sticks, sticks, and more sticks. Every previous mistake chased with a new and more drastic one.

The one thing they will never do, is admit they are the ones that screwed everything up. They are not trying to solve a political problem. They don't have political problems, it is tyranny without any effective opposition and they can do whatever they want. They thought that would solve all of their problems. But the reality is, there are real problems that aren't political ones caused by opposition or somebody else's power. They do not *know* things, that they would need to know, for any of their measures to have the effects they aim at. They are trying to solve *economic* problems, and *knowledge* problems, by political power and force. And predictably they fail, and predictably everyone else pays the price, not the screwed up evil leaders causing it all.

How much oil does zimbabwe have?

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Independent (UK)

Mugabe gives nation's oil assets to Libya to secure fuel
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
27 June 2003

The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has mortgaged strategic oil assets
to Libya in a desperate attempt to obtain fuel and overcome unprecedented
shortages in his embattled country.

The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has reportedly long wanted
Zimbabwe's oil facilities as part of his plans to set up his own "imperial
economic empire" in Africa.

The assets, consisting of an oil pipeline that runs from Mozambique's port
of Beira to Zimbabwe's eastern city of Mutare, and world-class oil blending
and fuel storage facilities in Harare, will enable Col Gaddafi to supply
fuel to other southern and central African countries, such as Zambia,
Malawi, Botswana, Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of Congo and
Mozambique.

After African leaders rejected Col Gaddafi's attempt to merge Africa's 53
countries into one with him as the likely leader of a "United States of
Africa". Col Gaddafi has continued to try to use his oil wealth to gain more
influence around Africa. Zimbabwean oil industry officials described
President Mugabe's current visit to Tripoli as a "do-or-die" mission for the
leader.

Mr Mugabe is trying to revive an earlier fuel deal with Col Gaddafi that
stalled last year when Zimbabwe failed to keep its side of the arrangement,
after the government's seizures of white farms led to the collapse of
agriculture revenues.

Col Gaddafi immediately discontinued supplying fuel products to Zimbabwe in
the middle of last year, plunging Zimbabwe into a crisis that has worsened
by the day. The original US$360m (£217m) deal had been expected to last
until the end of August this year, had Mr Mugabe kept up payments.

But Mr Mugabe's pleas for Libya to resume supplies fell on deaf ears as Col
Gaddafi demanded more assets from Zimbabwe, particularly the oil assets, and
labelled his staunch ally President Mugabe a "bad customer".

Oil industry officials say Mr Mugabe had not wanted to hand over these
assets because of their critical and strategic importance to Zimbabwe. The
oil pipeline is an important national asset because landlocked Zimbabwe does
not have the capacity to meet requirements by road or rail.

But now Mr Mugabe has run out of options because other countries are
unwilling to do business with his government, whose policies have
impoverished his once prosperous country. Other suppliers had discontinued
supplies because of non-payment, and Mr Gaddafi was the only one helping
Zimbabwe with fuel before he turned off the tap.

Before Mr Mugabe left for Tripoli on Tuesday, his government had brought in
new fuel-saving measures, including banning motorists from carrying fuel in
containers without state permits and introducing coupons for urban transport
operators to make "good use" of the little fuel that private importers are
able to bring into the country.

Officials said Zimbabwe had agreed to mortgage its main oil facilities under
the deal with Libyan officials who visited Zimbabwe before Mr Mugabe's
departure to Libya.

The new asset arrangement plan will settle a bill for US$67m that Mr Mugabe
already owes Col Gaddafi, while securing fresh fuel supplies from Libya. Mr
Mugabe and Col Gaddafi are expected to seal their private deal during the
President's current visit. However, officials said they were nervous that
Col Gaddafi, who no longer trusts Zimbabwe, could demand more.

"Mugabe and Gaddafi will hopefully tie up all loose ends so the deal can
take off," said one official. "It's a do-or-die mission because if the trip
somehow fails, then Zimbabwe has no other hope of ever getting fuel from
anywhere in the world. All other suppliers have severed ties with us due to
our failure to pay."

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