Working for change in Zimbabwe

BBC:

Ask Zimbabweans scraping a living in neighbouring Zambia how they intend to vote in Saturday's elections in their homeland, and many will give you the same reply: "For change."

"Maria" is one of them. With 10 mouths to feed, she's preoccupied with earning enough money to survive.

But, like many others, she is determined to get home to vote.

"I'm hoping for something better," she said, "something that will change everything.

"It's a very important election, and I have to participate. If I don't participate, then who will I have to blame?"

Maria has more reason than most to feel bitter about where Robert Mugabe has led his country.

Once the proud owner of a hair salon, she now works as a prostitute - driven to this by hunger, poverty and the need to support her family.

In addition to two children of her own and her elderly mother, she is caring for seven nieces and nephews - orphaned when their parents died of Aids.

"Most of the time we depend on porridge and water," she said.

"When I was growing up we used to eat bread with margarine, eggs and the like.

"But these days my kids don't even know what margarine is. My son just knows it from the television.

"He asks me, 'Mum, when can we eat bread with margarine?' and I tell him things are tough.

"At times we have no water for drinking or bathing - sometimes for up to five days."

Maria is one of as many as 300 Zimbabwean women working in prostitution in the Zambian border town of Livingston.

Their numbers are increasing, and their rates are the cheapest in town - such is their desperation.

In better days, many of these women led very different lives - among them a policewoman, a soldier, and a bank official.

Now they huddle in the doorway of a brothel in the downtown area, waiting for customers.

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The cost of Mugabe's misrule is spreading throughout southern Africa. While hopefully these people will get an opportunity to vote against Mugabe, there is great concern that he will try to steal the election. He has apparently had millions of extra ballots printed according to reports in some UK papers.

CNN reports that it will not be permitted to cover the election. That should make it easier for Mugabe to cheat and it should also give his election less legitimacy. When it comes to transparency, Mugabe is transparently corrupt behind the scenes.

Meanwhile the Telegraph reports that Mugabe has vowed that the opposition will never take power.

The NY Times reports on the abuse of opposition candidates in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe stands as an example of the failure of the International Criminal Court and the multilateral approach to problems in Africa. He has been conducting genocide on the cheap for for years and the world has made itself powerless to do anything about it.