From time to time a South African Georgist forwards these messages from Cathy in Zimbabwe. Things seem to be going from bad to worse.
Harry
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THEN THEY CAME FOR ME
Dear Family and Friends,
Zimbabwe is gripped in a feverish state of indecision and panic and no one has any answers to the question we are all asking: what do we do about our money?
The banks, building societies and ATM's continue to have no bank notes to give to their customers and the queues of people waiting for money are still crowding the pavements and spilling out into the streets. When a rumour circulates that a bank has received a delivery of cash, hundreds of people run to the doors in huge crowds hoping that they will be able to draw out a few thousand dollars to survive for another day.
This has been going on for two months and the cash flow situation has not improved at all even though our Minister of Finance has told us that our present red 500 dollar note will cease to be legal tender at the end of September.
The Minister also assures us that a new 500 dollar note of another colour will be issued but it has not been released less than 10 days before the end of the month and we are all wondering what on earth to do now.
If people pay wages on the last day of the month using red five hundred dollar notes how will their workers be able to spend them if they are no longer legal tender?
There is no way of changing the red notes either for the new colour note or for money in smaller denominations because there is a chronic shortage of that as well. The option is for employers to pay their wages a few days before the end of the month but this doesn't solve anything either because then employees have the same problem. Do they spend their entire monthly wage on things that they don't actually need just to get rid of the money or do they keep the notes hoping that the Minister of Finance will extend the life of the red note? It is confusing, chaotic and we are all pathetically asking each other what to do with our remaining notes instead of demanding a solution from our government.
The Minister seems to be completely unaware of the massive crisis now facing every man and woman in the country who is struggling to survive an official inflation rate which this week hit 426%.
A month ago the Minister told us we were to use internal travellers cheques but this failed dismally and now he tells us we are to use something called "bearers cheques" which are like money, but aren't money and have been printed on something he called "notepaper" at huge cost to the nation.
This notepaper "bearers cheque" will only be valid until January 2004 and has exactly the same problems attached to it that travellers cheques had. Why on earth our government have wasted so many billions of dollars printing travellers and bearers cheques when they should have been printing money is a mystery, almost as much of a mystery as why they are removing the red 500 dollar note and wasting billions more dollars printing another colour 500 dollar note. If you are confused after reading this then join the club !
This huge money crisis is just one of the things that should have been reported and debated in the media but there has been no information at all. The State run newspaper continues to flight full page and very colourful adverts telling us about the impending arrival of new 500 dollar note but says nothing about the expiry of the present red note.
The week began and ended without our only independent daily newspaper The Daily News. Despite a High Court order handed down on Thursday which gave the Daily News permission to continue operating for another 60 days, the police refused to comply with the order.
Earlier in the week they had seized over 100 computers and other equipment from the Daily News but when it came time to obey the court order and give the equipment back, they said they had no transport to do so.
The High Court Order further instructed police to let Daily News owners and employees back into their offices but this also didn't happen. Police refused them entry to their own offices saying that they had not received a copy of the High Court Order.
Frankly it all stinks and I'm not really sure why we are surprised. Police have consistently refused to obey court rulings relating to farmers and then to members of the opposition and now they are doing the same when it comes to the independent media and freedom of speech.
They have again shown to the world that they only represent people's legal rights if those people belong to the ruling Zanu PF party.
Bit by agonising bit Zimbabwe's government have stripped us of our constitutional, legal and human rights. For me losing the right to be able to buy, read and write for the newspaper of my choice is the worst. For the last three and a half years at least we knew what was happening in our country.
We knew which Ministers were grabbing multiple farms, which people were perpetrating violence on opposition supporters and just exactly how our government were stealing, mortgaging and selling our national heritage and assets, now we are alone and in the dark.
I would like to end with the quote I use at the beginning of my book Beyond Tears. For me this says it all about our lives today in Zimbabwe:
"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me." (Pastor Niemoller, Nazi victim.) \
Until next week, with love, cathy. http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books about Zimbabwe's turmoil, "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in the UK and USA through: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; in Australia and New Zealand through [EMAIL PROTECTED] and in Africa through www.exclusivebooks.com and www.kalahari.net
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.comcast.net/~haledward ****************************************************
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