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Conditions in Zimbabwe may point to a collapse

Inflation soars, and there are shortages of food, fuel and medication.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Zimbabwe may be reaching the endgame, witnessing the last, desperate throes of a regime that has destroyed one of Africa's few successful economies, plunged millions of people into grinding poverty, and led to the deaths of tens of thousands from malnutrition and lack of medical care.

The final act did not come Saturday, when President Robert Mugabe celebrated his 83rd birthday with cake and champagne at a $1.2-million party while hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans struggled to survive on bread and water.

And it probably won't happen in the weeks leading up to April 18, the 27th anniversary of an end to racist white rule and Mugabe's ascension to power.

But years of abuse and neglect are culminating in untenable crises, analysts say. "People's anger is mounting," said Zimbabwean political scientist John Makumbe. "They're no longer afraid to go into the streets, and I think the government is growing very afraid of what may happen."

The world's worst hyperinflation is spiraling out of control, bringing shortages of food, fuel, medication and electricity. Police have banned demonstrations in opposition strongholds in the capital, Harare, for three months. And criticism is mounting within Mugabe's ruling party, which is divided over who will succeed him and when.

"Each and every individual on the upper echelons" is jockeying for his position, Mugabe complained in an interview on his actual birthday, Wednesday, broadcast over the country's sole and state-owned TV station.

But, he announced categorically: "There are no vacancies because I am still there."

Mugabe blames sanctions, drought and former colonizer Britain for the collapse of an economy once based on exports of a wealth of agricultural and mineral products.

Others blame land grabs over the past several years in which Mugabe encouraged blacks to violently force out most of the 5,000 white commercial farmers who owned 40 percent of all agricultural land and produced 75 percent of agricultural output.

White farmers had employed the country's largest work force and their ejection led to the displacement of 300,000 families. The farms, most given to Mugabe relatives, allies and cronies, lie fallow today and Zimbabwe does not have the foreign currency to import food.

The World Bank estimates it would take more than 20 years for Zimbabwe's economy to return to levels in 1980, when the country was considered the breadbasket of the region.

The rate of hyperinflation - running at near 1,600 percent - that economists say soon will be represented by an upright line on a graph has the country in revolt. The number of Zimbabwe dollars that bought a three-bedroom house with a swimming pool and tennis court in 1990 will buy a brick today.

A lifetime public worker's monthly pension can't buy a loaf of bread. Charities have reported depression, suicide and malnutrition among retirees - including a type of vitamin deficiency affecting gums, bones and hair loss.

Makumbe said an estimated 70,000 people have died this year because there are no drugs in hospitals and medical equipment like dialysis machines don't work any more. Children have been among the first to suffer, with one in four orphaned and more than 2-million at risk of starvation, the U.N. Children's Fund said.

[Last modified February 25, 2007, 00:58:42]