Zimbabwe: Time for regime change

TheTimes
3 December 2008, 00:04 GMT + 2 2 comments

ON our pages today we carry a story written by our former deputy editor, Moses Mudzwiti, now a resident of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
It is a harrowing account of just how far this once vibrant city has sunk under the watch of the tyrant, Robert Mugabe.
The break down in the provision of basic services such as water, sanitation and electricity is so severe that they have all but ceased by be provided by the state.
Water, life’s greatest necessity, is now traded in plastic barrels on the back of pick-up trucks.
Electricity is so erratic as to render basic household appliances such as stoves, useless.
On the streets of Harare, soldiers have become a law unto themselves as the state has failed to pay them.
They once protected the people. Then they became the tools of an ailing regime.
Now they fend for themselves, breaking the windows of clothing stores and taking what they can like common thieves.
The state propaganda sheet, The Herald newspaper and state television ignored the rampage despite the fact it took place a stone’s throw away.
The breakdown of Mugabe’s state is complete.
There is no longer any monetary system to speak of. Law and order have given way to the survival of the fittest.
South Africa and Botswana have begun to act more decisively on the crisis, cutting aid and threatening to close borders.
But this is too little, too late.
Zimbabwe is becoming the scene of a global health and security catastrophe.
The world’s leaders need to consider far more drastic steps to save the lives that are in grave danger.
A massive assistance programme — with or without the support of Mugabe — must be launched to restore water and sanitation and to end this pernicious regime once and for all.