Kingdom of Mugabe: three volumes chronicle Zimbabwe's descent into the heart of darkness

It is not often that journalists, used to reporting the news, become the news themselves. But when Andrew Meldrum tried to do his job as the Zimbabwe correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, he found himself jailed, abused, and finally illegally deported from the country he'd adopted as his home. He is noteworthy for being the first journalist tried and acquitted under AIPPA, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which was designed to prevent independent media from operating in Zimbabwe. Where We Have Hope is Meldrum's account of his working life in Zimbabwe, and it is a compelling, passionate, and witty read.

Andrew Meldrum wanted to go to the newly formed state of Zimbabwe after it achieved independence from Great Britain in 1980. He arrived with hope and was eager to report what he expected to be good news. The news was indeed broadly favorable for awhile, with the new president, Robert Mugabe, increasing spending on health and education for the black majority, with impressive results. But it didn't take long for Meldrum to be concerned by the oppressive techniques used by Mugabe and his cabal of Marxist cronies. As Meldrum recalls, Zimbabweans were beaten to death simply for reading the independent press. But he still felt optimistic. "I was amazed by the resilience of so many of the people that I interviewed," he wrote, "and how many people firmly believed that a change for the better was within their reach and were willing to risk attack to bring that about."

His interviews with justice minister Patrick Chinamasa and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai were revealing, since they explained why the Mugabe regime became so odious. They also established Meldrum as a reporter of note at the Guardian. Said Chinamasa: "I belong to a generation which brought fundamental revolutionary changes not through the law or the legal process but through the barrel of a gun. The law is only a political concept. It can be used as a tool from any political angle." With that kind of attitude, it is easy to understand why violence was inevitable and why change was so desired by the populace.

The leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, said: "What you've got to understand is that a liberation movement that has fought a war to gain power only values its own power. It does not respect laws because it had to break laws to win power. It does not respect international opinion because it had to operate without that approval. It does not respect democracy because that is not how it came to power. They only value their own power. That is why we see Mugabe dismantling everything else just to keep his power."

While Meldrum, who had upset the odious regime with one of his reports, was languishing in a stinky jail, Zimbabwe was appointed to the board of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The only amusing relief for the inmates, several of whom were fellow journalists, was that they read about the U.N.'s odd decision in the government newspaper, the Herald. The guards told them, "You are not allowed to read the paper, you can only use it for the toilet." They felt this a fitting tribute to the government's mouthpiece.

But Meldrum was further dismayed by the U.N., which cited lack of funds for not pursuing allegations of torture against a Zimbabwe national serving on its peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Harare police officer Henry Dowa was identified by several victims as a torturer but the U.N. refused to act, and Dowa is now back in Harare going about his grisly business.

Meldrum's exit from Zimbabwe was swift: He was bundled into a car, beaten, and driven to the airport. Knowing there was no legal deportation order against Meldrum, and knowing a court order said he had the right to remain in Zimbabwe, the immigration officer dealing with him said, "We don't care about any court order; just get on the plane." With no choice, Meldrum grudgingly left the country and has not set foot in Zimbabwe since that day in May 2003. His reporting continues from Pretoria, but one day he'll go back.

A less personal but far more detailed dissection of the murderous Mugabe regime is undertaken by the Washington Times Africa correspondent, Geoff Hill. In The Battle for Zimbabwe, Hill spends a good deal of time on an interesting history of Zimbabwe, from colonial times to independence in 1980 to the fateful past few years. He treats Mugabe fairly, tellingly reporting that at least until 1989 he was far less violent than many other African leaders. Hill interviews many of the victims of Mugabe's regime, and some of these interviews deserve an X rating given the torture they describe. At times the book is delightfully amusing, invoking the irrepressible Zimbabwean humor. Hill describes the Green Bombers as Mugabe's Hitler Youth, since they specialize in pack aggression, intimidation of non-Mugabe supporters, and a talent for brainwashing themselves and many around them. They came to the fore about the same time that the Taliban were falling in Afghanistan, and behind their backs were apparently known as the "Talibob"--an amusing play on the abbreviation of their despised president's first name. After Mugabe's disastrous land grab plunged his country into economic chaos, and he blamed everyone else (notably Britain, the World Bank, and the IMF) for the collapse, rural Zimbabweans claimed it was, indeed, IMF: It's Mugabe's Fault.

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Mugabe refers to whites and opposition politicians as terrorists, and there is little hope for improvement. But change must come, and, like Andy Meldrum, Geoff Hill will probably be back there to describe it. This is a good book and it pulls no punches: Hill is exasperated that no African leader has so far taken a strong stand against Mugabe. He says this may be because other leaders are behaving almost as badly as Mugabe, and don't want to criticize a fellow leader. And there is also a hangover from colonial days: Leaders don't want to support white northerners' criticism. But until African leaders oppose despotism, and democracy is the norm, Africa will never flourish.

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When I first visited Zimbabwe in 1996, $1 would buy about $8 Zimbabwe. When I was there last November, $1 would get you $6000 zim at the official rate, but more like $12,000 zim on the black market. Today's bank notes are printed on only one side and with an expiration date, unemployment is about 80 percent, and the economy has halved in the past five years. Craig Richardson's The Collapse of Zimbabwe in the Wake of the 2000-2003 Land Reforms contains many socioeconomic details. Although ridiculously expensive and full of typographical errors, the book has real strength: It focuses on the fundamental reason for the recent collapse in Zimbabwe. It is not the loss of freedom of the press, or unsound monetary policy, or high military expenditure from fighting wars in other countries that benefit cronies, or low health expenditure--although all these factors have a negative impact.

No, the real reason that Zimbabwe has collapsed is that there is no protection of private property. The executive rides roughshod over the judiciary in all matters of property. The result is "dead capital," a term invented by Hernando de Soto, and total economic annihilation. The economy is now worth approximately one percent of what it was worth in 1999.

What is most important about Richardson's work is that it documents the reverse of the good news offered by De Soto. In The Mystery of Capital, De Soto exhaustively demonstrated that where property rights are delineated and enforced, economies grow rapidly. As if to provide the flip side, Richardson explains how the destruction of rights leads to an almost instantaneous collapse.

But he offers hope by drawing parallels with Nicaragua, which also suffered economic collapse based on the destruction of property rights under the Sandinista government. In recent years, with a more capitalist-minded government, the Nicaraguan economy has annually grown at over 4 percent, with inflation below 10 percent, which he says is mainly due to protection of property rights. The other institutions of a free society matter, but none matter so much as the right to the rewards of one's own labor.

Richardson concludes with policy advice, and at the top of the list is the reinstatement of land rights and compensation to those robbed. Turning dead capital into something with life will do more than anything else to reverse the disaster that is Zimbabwe. Whether that can happen with the current government is not something Richardson discusses. One has to look to the first two authors for opinions on that.

Where We Have Hope

A Memoir of Zimbabwe

by Andrew Meldrum

Atlantic Monthly, 228 pp., $24

The Battle for Zimbabwe

The Final Countdown

by Geoff Hill

Zebra, 308 pp., $21.95

The Collapse of Zimbabwe in the Wake of the 2000-2003 Land Reforms

Studies in African Economic and Social Development

by Craig Richardson

Edwin Mellon, 172 pp., $99.95

Roger Bate is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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