How to Kill a Country

From the Marginal Revolution website (here) comes a link to an article (here) by Samantha Power in Atlantic Magazine (reprinted with permission here) It details Robert Mugabe's rise to power and his turning Zimbabwe from the breadbasket of Africa (exporting food) into a poor nation that now relies of food aid for its people to survive... Talking about the farming: bq. The tragedy of Mugabe's approach is that it has harmed those whom a well-ordered, selective redistribution program could and should have helped. Generally the farms have not been given to black farm managers or farm workers. Indeed, because of their association with the opposition, more than a million farm workers and their dependents have been displaced, and they are now at grave risk of starvation. In fact, the beneficiaries of the land seizures are, with few exceptions, ruling-party officials and friends of the President's. Although Mugabe's people seem to view the possession of farms as a sign of status (the Minister of Home Affairs has five; the Minister of Information has three; Mugabe's wife, Grace, and scores of influential party members and their relatives have two each), these elites don't have the experience, the equipment, or, apparently, the desire to run them. About 130,000 formerly landless peasants helped the ruling elites to take over the farms, but now that the dirty work is done, many of them are themselves being expelled. bq. The drop-off in agricultural production is staggering. Maize farming, which yielded more than 1.5 million tons annually before 2000, is this year expected to generate just 500,000 tons. Wheat production, which stood at 309,000 tons in 2000, will hover at 27,000 tons this year. Tobacco production, too, which at 265,000 tons accounted for nearly a third of the total foreign-currency earnings in 2000, has tumbled, to about 66,000 tons in 2003. And he is still supported by the U.N.