OPINION - Mugabe and Zanu-PF and their policies of nationalising agriculture and their Reserve Bank are the cause of Zimbabwean poverty.
Mugabe wiped out the savings of hundreds of thousands of poor Zimbabweans when he started printing money at a rapid rate and made their currency worthless through hyper-inflation.
He and his cadres destroyed their health system - which the ANC will shortly imitate - then Mugabe went to Singapore for medical treatment.
This is what African dictators do: they destroy their own economies and go shopping, to hospitals and on holiday, in western capitals. Millions of Zimbabweans lost their jobs because industry, commerce and mining cannot function without money, appropriate economic policies, the supply of water and electricity, and protection of property rights. How do you pay your workers? In pieces of sheep?
Then he caused further mass starvation by destroying agriculture. So they must import food instead of producing it locally.
Further, cadres appointed in municipal government caused most municipal services to collapse - similar to what is happening in South Africa.
Both the US and the EU continue to trade with Zimbabwe, contrary to popular belief. The Zimbabwean government’s claim that the chaos is caused by sanctions is thus a blatant lie. The chaos is self imposed.
It is time for the people of Africa to see through the lies of their dictators. Mugabe liberated Zimbabwe from colonialism, but delivered them into worse - a life of mass poverty. What kind of liberation is that?
Naushad Omar Athlone, Cape Town
Daily News