Mugabe's Fat Farms

For a good look at what is happening in Zimbabwe, I recommend this piece from last November's Sunday Times. It explores the confiscation of land, the dramatic declines in production, and the growth of secret police and terrorism in stark detail [thanks to BenS and Clive for the link].

One example of Robert Mugabe's near or apparent insanity is this:

ZIMBABWE has come up with a bizarre proposal to solve the food crisis threatening half its population with starvation. It wants to bring in obese tourists from overseas so that they can shed pounds doing manual labour on land seized from white farmers.

The so-called Obesity Tourism Strategy was reported last week in The Herald, a government organ whose contents are approved by President Robert Mugabe’s powerful information minister, Jonathan Moyo.

Pointing out that more than 1.2 billion people worldwide are officially deemed to be overweight, the article exhorted Zimbabweans to “tap this potential”.

“Tourists can provide labour for farms in the hope of shedding weight while enjoying the tourism experience,” it said....“Tour organisers may promote this programme internationally and bring in tourists, while agriculturalists can employ the tourists as free farm labour.

I am willing to donate labour to many causes.
Robert Mugabe's dictatorship is way, way, waaayyyyy down on the list, though.