SINCE JOURNEYING to Zimbabwe in August, the situation there seems to have gone from bad to worse. On September 13, police detained and allegedly tortured top union leaders planning to hold peaceful demonstrations in the country’s major cities. The following week, the government denied entry to a delegation from the American Coalition of Black Trade Unionists hoping to visit its weary comrades, even though the group had obtained visas and notified the regime of its plans well ahead of their arrival. And–in spite of all this–Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe received a hearty welcome from his fellow statesmen at last month’s United Nations General Assembly meeting. (As he always does for his frequent foreign jaunts, the President used Air Zimbabwe’s only transcontinental aircraft, forcing the national carrier to charter a Portuguese plane for the duration of his time abroad.) There was no indication from the world body that its members would do anything to help the Zimbabwean people and Mugabe had the nerve to suggest that, “there is no hunger anymore, and we have a bumper harvest, so there is enough maize in the country.” He ought to tell that to the people I met in Harare, who were digging the ground for mice to eat no more than 8 miles from his presidential mansion, the largest private residence in Africa.
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