[Food shortages… This is COMMUNISM in action in Africa. Enjoy! Jan]

Harare – Armed police had to be called in while a woman fainted as thousands of hungry people jostled and stampeded to buy sugar and maize-meal that went on sale at two branches of a supermarket chain in central Harare. Hordes of people had begun gathering at the OK supermarket branches along First and Rezende streets as early as 4 am after word got around that the two shops would be receiving deliveries of sugar and mealie-meal. The two shops had not received supplies of sugar and mealie-meal for weeks. The two commodities are among a long list of basic goods, including fuel, electricity and essential medical drugs that are in short supply in Zimbabwe as an economic crisis gripping the country for the last five years grows in intensity. The crowds that had anxiously waited outside broke up into chaos as shop staff attempted to begin sales of the two vital commodities. Several were injured and only a quick reaction by officials at the two shops, who summoned armed anti-riot police to restore order, averted worse injury and possibly even loss of life. “What is the job of the government when we cannot get food, all this commotion just for sugar tells you the government has failed,” said an angry Moleen Matora, almost naked after half her dress was torn away in the melee. Matora, who stays in the city of Chitungwiza, 21 km south-east of Harare, said she had woken up at 3 am to join the queue after a neighbour tipped her there would be sugar and mealie-meal on sale at OK. “It is unfortunate that most Zimbabweans take this kind of life as normal but it is not. If this is what we have to go through just to buy a packet of sugar or mealie-meal, then it means there is something seriously wrong with whoever is running the country,” Matora said before walking away. She did not have the sugar after pulling out of the jostling crowd after her dress was torn.

Zimbabwe™s food crisis worsened days after President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party™s controversial landslide victory in a parliamentary election last March. Basic commodities vanished from shops while in the few shops that had stock, prices doubled or even tripled forcing the government to intervene arresting shop owners for charging more than state fixed prices. But the government™s intervention only helped fuel an illegal black-market, which is now the main source of nearly every other basic commodity from washing soap, to petrol, to birth control pills. Economists say Zimbabwe™s food crisis can only worsen in the coming months unless Mugabe addresses the problems that led to Zimbabwe™s ostracisation from the international community and the withdrawal of financial aid vital to revive the economy. The United States, European Union, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have cut support to Harare and imposed targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his top lieutenants for failure to uphold democracy, rule of law, human and property rights. Mugabe accuses the West of only using human rights and democracy as a pretext to sabotage Zimbabwe™s economy to punish his government for seizing white farmland for redistribution to landless blacks.

From Zim Online (SA), 17 May