The Founder of our Nation: Bob-George Washingabe

Our Harare correspondent writes to warn us that, thanks to the ongoing downward spiral in the value of the Zimbabwe dollar, evil and mischievous counterfeiters have recently turned to exploiting the miraculously-still-more-valuable American original. Said counterfeiters, however, are after all in the employ of the government, and therefore are obliged to do their all to perpetuate Bob Mugabe's waning cult of personality. The result is a United States greenback that many experts will easily identify as bogus:


FW: PLEASE NOTE - FAKE USD NOTES IN CIRCULATION!

The Reptilian Series

Antarcticiana's Zimbabwe correspondent is safely back in Harare after a hair-raising and homesickness-inspiring vacation abroad on various continents. The farcical business of life in the late Mugabe period continues, a total systemic collapse best illustrated, as usual, by the government's continued insistence on printing money faster than it can obtain paper. Soon, furthermore, there won't be enough room left on a standard bill for all the zeroes.

Only a few weeks ago the complete collection of Zimbabwean billion-dollar bills landed on my desk. Imagine our reporter's consternation and amazement (minimal, actually) to discover upon returning to the former breadbasket of Africa that the printing presses were already deep into the trillions. The latest currency report from the front lines of hyperinflation:

We now have the trillion series, The 10, 20, 50, and 100 trillion dollar notes. The trillions were basically printed to pay the military. The notes never made it into the bank and the soldiers were paid in barracks so they didn't have to stand in a queue or be seen to be taking over any queues. Later that day they were seen trying to convert their trillions into US$.

On the day the trillions were introduced, 16th January, the rate was 600 Billion Zim to US $1. 4 days later, on 21st January, the rate is 25 Trillion to US $1. The general public is still waiting to see the trillions in circulation. I have obtained one 10 Trillion dollar note, and when the others are worth nothing I will be able to buy them for $1 each. Notice the shortage of ink color choice. [These colors are identical to the billion-dollar notes and have the same "pile of rocks" graphic, ed.] Luckily there is no confusion as no one really accepts Zim dollars anyway. The problem now is how to pay military and civil servants next month. Coupons and South African Rand are being talked about.

If you add 13 zeroes to 100 trillion you get a reptilian.



Meanwhile, functionaries have announced that passports will only be issued on an emergency basis, at a cost of $650 (US). The Harare Tribune reports that "an official at the passport office said the suspension in issuing of ordinary passports was due to shortage of material needed to make passports. 'There is no paper to print passports so we can only entertain emergency cases which give us foreign currency. The only way to give everyone passports would be to charge a flat fee in forex [hard currency], but that would embarass the government,' he said."

And what would embarrass this government, as my grandpappy used to say, would shame a hog to death.

Highest price ever paid for a book!

A high-net-worth individual has paid the most elevated price ever recorded for a book, an archaic analog media delivery device consisting of a number of sheets of paper printed with words loosely organized around a particular topic, then bound together with glue, between boards. The private collector, a resident of Africa who chooses to remain anonymous, handed over the staggering sum of one hundred and eighty billion dollars for an autographed example of Walking to Guantánamo, the chronicle of Richard Fleming's long schlep across the island of Cuba. Asked to comment on the motivations behind this extraordinary purchase, the proud owner of the volume, replying through a spokesperson, said only that "it was sold out again on Amazon, and what's more, nobody will ship to Harare anyway."

How I'm Rollin'...
With all the billions.

A special offer, from our elite "collectioneur series"

Our exclusive images of these particular Zimbabwean "Special Agro-Cheques" (so named just in case anyone was suffering under the delusion that they are actual currency, backed by gold or even just the good will of some fictive, notional, national reserve) come to us courtesy of our fearless correspondent in Harare. As I predicted, they have arrived only just in time to be made (even more) worthless, by government fiat. Today the Ministry of Overworked Printers, as we are now referring to the financial arm of the government, apparently concluded that to spiral upwards into the hundreds of billions was taking their giddy affair just a bit too far.

The new $10 bill, or is it a "1"? I can't keep it straight. The government this morning decreed that life would be simpler and more wholesome for everyone if they were simply to lop a dozen or so zeros (noughts) off the end.

A mind-f#*k of a cash day, notes our correspondent. The rate is now 12.5 as opposed to 125 billions (Zim dollar to US dollar). We can still use the billions, sorry, $1 note, until the end of December. New currency not available, and there is still a shortage of the good old billions. They should have just removed the first three digits and dealt in noughts.

Nothing in the shops. Shopping means driving to obscure addresses and seeing what people have stored in their garages. Beer from one, fish from another, and twenty liters of fuel to get around. Stella Artois and fish for supper. Crisis, what crisis? Last night's Chinese food was a trillion, or $15 US.

Just off to trade eggs for sugar. Catch up later.

Rounding out the collection, the balance of the defunct billions.

eBay singlehandedly rescues Zimbabwean economy from the doldrums

The Zimbabwean 100 Billion Dollar Bill, with a current street value in Harare of somewhere between five and fifteen US cents, is so hard to come by that they are going for up to $100 US on eBay. That kind of action could reverse the tide of hyperinflation.

And I thought the US dollar was weak... UPDATED

the one cent, through to the fifty thousand

and from the five hundred thousand to the fifty million...

Seeing this story about the new 100 billion dollar bill reminded me that our Zimbabwe correspondent, at my special request, sent some photos not too long ago to illustrate the astonishing explosion of numerals plaguing the Zim dollar. Although we are proud that our correspondent has maintained a complete collection of all the banknotes issued throughout the course of Zimbabwe's ongoing hyperinflation, things have been a bit hectic over here at antarcticiana and we never quite got around to running them.

you do the math... and have a close look at the expiry dates

By the time some corrupt functionary admits there is a problem and the determination is made to authorize the printing of yet another round of silly-sounding monopolyesque tissue paper denominated in the multi-millions, the new, ballyhooed note is more than likely already close to worthless. The fifty-million dollar bill pictured here was the biggest available in April. Now it's July and one-hundred billion dollars aren't enough for bus fare. One Hundred Billion Dollars! Why, a normal country could wage war against Iraq for several months, fueling their entire military-industrial complex, with that kind of money! Coming soon, the "one to the nth power" note, with a blank space for the user to fill in the exponent of his or her choice.

Photo credits withheld pending the reestablishment of Zimbabwean democracy

UPDATE: In the latest twist on this farce, renewed sanctions against the government by European powers in the wake of the recent, flagrant, election-theft in Zimbabwe have cut off all exports of bank-note paper. The Guardian has the story. The result is that the government, despite desperately printing money (almost) as fast as they can spend it, has nonetheless run out of currency, and cannot pay the security apparatus that is propping up the regime.

One delicious detail in the story is that the former provider of the watermarked paper is none other than the German firm, Giesecke & Devrient, which both printed Germany's money during the Weimar Republic hyperinflation between the two great wars, and supplied Rhodesia's white regime with their currency. As one might imagine, they have only cut off supplies to Zimbabwe in response to pressure brought by their own government.

Obviously, it is time for the ministry of finance to get serious about recycling the countless sheaves of worthless notes issued over the last couple of years, except that by the time they collect, bleach, and reprint a one dollar bill as a one-hundred billion dollar bill they will have spent far more than the final product is worth. As of this morning, when the Guardian went to press, the Zim 100 Billion was worth about fifteen US cents. I imagine it is worth rather less by now.

Tapiwa Mubwanda Murdered

I realize antarcticiana is at the moment running the risk of morphing into Zimbabweana, but since the scandalous aftermath of the sham elections there shows every sign of devolving into a pogrom, and because the major media are largely yawning in the face of yet another African catastrophe, and most of all because a very good friend in Harare continues daily to risk life and limb, going out into the streets there in a desperate attempt to alert the outside world to the violent shenanigans of Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF, I feel obliged to bring you yet more sad news from that failed state.

Violent reprisals against known opposition activists of the MDC, who likely won the recent elections outright, have begun. Although official election results continue to be withheld, a runoff election has been scheduled, and the campaign of intimidation against putative MDC voters is underway.

As part of that campaign, this last weekend, in rural Zimbabwe, Tapiwa Mubwanda was Murdered.

I'm withholding the most gruesome photographs I was sent because my sister's children sometimes read these pages. These are video stills grabbed from footage shot by a local Zimbabwean.

Tapiwa's body at his home



Tapiwa Mubwanda's widow: "We were on our way from Masikote, they grabbed my husband and said you are the MDC people I want to fix you today. I ran away because I wanted to take my child to a safe place because I realized that if I stayed they were going to kill me. Then I had to go back and see what was happening to my husband. When I got back my husband was lying down, bleeding from the mouth, blood on the stomach, I removed my blouse and put it on his stomach to try and stop the bleeding and make him better."

Mubwanda's brother survived: "They [said] 'you voted for the MDC now we want to do this in order to teach you to vote, you wasted your vote by voting for Tsvangirai. He will never be the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe will remain, so we want to teach you to vote so when we have the run offs that means you will be aware, you will know how to vote.' I was struck by a stone on my forehead, that’s when I fell down. After falling down I didn’t know what was happening because they came to me, attacking me with sticks all over my body, even now I am not feeling ok, I’m very painful. Now I can’t help it, I’ve got to go home, my brother is going to be buried there and I have got to attend that burial, but I am feeling very painful."

UPDATE: I might have mentioned, in my slagging off of the major media, that thankfully one can still usually rely on the Guardian. Today, they have the story.

The Mugabe strategy, aka 'Harassed in Harare'

One of the failures of the contemporary model for gathering international news is that, thanks to the convenience of modern air-travel, overstretched foreign correspondents cover vast multi-nation territories. In the old days, they lived in-country. Although playing golf with government ministers and attending an endless stream of cocktail parties at the homes of the ruling elite doubtless introduced a different kind of bias into the reporting of the old-school journalists, at least they picked one story and lived with it. Today's reporters are, literally, flighty, and they stay on the scene only until a new, ostensibly more important story emerges from their region of interest.

The Mugabe henchmen orchestrating Zimbabwe's latest and most flagrant election fraud seem to be well versed in this dynamic. Having issued almost no press credentials they are now pretending such credentials are something working reporters ought to be able to produce. And by endlessly delaying the announcement of "official" results and refusing to take any dramatic action, they are winning a battle of fatigue. Harassed, arrested, molested and congested, the horde of media who flooded into Harare for the latest round of bogus elections is starting to feel the tedium, along with the magnetic attraction those of their breed feel for the airport, whenever the country they find themselves in slides inexorably off of the front page and into the dim interior of the newspaper. Many, doubtless, have already left. Not our trusty Zimbabwe correspondent, permanently on the scene:

Well it is all very Zimbabwean! There is an arrest list out for outside journalists who have been working without accreditation and appearing on overseas channels. This has proved very handy for those of us who were getting a bit bored with our correspondents wanting to be filmed on streets, doing stand uppers and wanting to eat out! Hence mass jitterisation of all foreign correspondents by local fixers. To jitterise: to give someone the jitters. A very successful move leading to mass exodus through all borders. The print guys arrested [including New York Times reporter Barry Bearak] were collateral damage at a lodge where the secret US-funded MDC number-crunchers were staying. Independent electoral observers were picked up trying to leave at the airport and now they are arresting the government-appointed electoral officials for corruption and fraud!

This after not allowing any outside observers, then removing the MDC observers and appointing Zanu councillors and policemen as observers. MDC in court to try and force the presidential announcement. The High court still has the ballot boxes from the previous two elections! So while the MDC yet again try the legal route, the ZEC breaks the law twice by not announcing a recount within 48 hours and not announcing the results within 6 days, allowing Zanu to cry foul, reinvade farms (war vets are announcing reinvasions to stop the whites taking back their land!) and to get war vets to start a bit of select thumpage. Mind you, I look forward to the idea of white land invasions. Rugby songs, a braii, beer bellies and tiny shorts should be enough to scare any self-respecting war vet.

The only official news crews left are SABC, CBC (thanks to their pushy ambassador who watches CBC) and Al Jazeera - now called Al Jazanu due to their very partisan correspondent Supa Manidwanzirwa, a man with all the right connections. Who is CEO of a company that leased bulldozers to the government during operation Murambvatsina and other dodgy business deals. The Al Jazeera team can be spotted anywhere due to their tons of equipment, broadcast van and a surplus of Hugo Boss suits and loafers that never seem to leave the hotel.

So I am now resting. Planning to go to Maputo if I can get new license plates after driving through a big hole and losing mine. Business as usual. Another stolen election.

Glossary of Terms:

Stand Uppers Those brief on-the-street reports done by standing newscasters "on scene," breathlessly giving updates while the mayhem unfolds in the very background of the shot. Known as "stand-ups" in US cameraman lingo.

Fixer On-site assistant to visiting crews, hired to ease a foreign production through the cultural, political and economic minefields of local bureaucracy and generalized mayhem. Jobs including bribing customs officers, exchanging bullet-ridden rental cars, trading cash on the black market, and ordering lunch.

MDC Movement for Democratic Change. The main opposition political party in Zimbabwe, whose candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was the apparent winner of the elections.

Zanu PF Mugabe's ruling party.

ZEC The ostensibly independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

Reinvasion Renewed assault on farmland by Zanu PF henchmen under the guise of "land reform." The original farm invasions, in which the enormous landholdings of the white minority were redistributed as a form of political and military patronage, resulted in the collapse of the agricultural sector and famine, since many of those taking title to the land had no farming or business experience.

War Vets Veterans of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle rewarded with properties portioned out during the above-mentioned "land-reform." Distinct from the newer generation of veterans of the Congo war, who returned heavily armed from looting that country's diamond mines and were pacified with acreage or simply helped themselves to a share of property. These latter known as "freedom fighters," and "carpet-baggers."

Thumpage Savage, extended beating is the preferred mode of state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe.

Braai Afrikaans for barbecue. Fundamental cornerstone of white African social life.

Operation Murambvatsina The wholesale razing of enormous Harare shanty-towns, considered hotbeds of Mugabe opposition, which resulted in waves of refugee flight and the overnight creation of dozens of thousands of homeless.

Maputo Capital of Mozambique. The current preferred tropical bolt-hole and getaway paradise for anyone trapped in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean Charade (Updated)

One man army of electoral fraud: Robert "Bob" Mugabe, voting and voting and voting and voting.

Zimbabwe is trapped in post-electoral paralysis as the Zanu PF forces of Robert Mugabe appear incapable of believing that they will successfully steal the latest elections from Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC. Our Zimbabwe correspondent writes:

MDC declares victory, time goes by as official results trickle out. Bob to announce victory soon.

Ironically MDC [opposition party Movement for Democratic Change] appear to have landslide win according to independent observers and number crunchers based on results posted outside polling stations despite massive gerrymandering. However, being the MDC, they have no strategy or plan B and seem unable to mobilize. At the rate state media are going it will take 4 days to announce Bob the winner.

But the rumours are excellent. Grace [Mrs. Bob] is in Malaysia with the kids. Bob is in South Africa. Bob is busy with security chiefs planning to crush any defiance. People are driving to the border. Military on high alert. Military divided. Military about to plan a coup. Military united behind Bob. Enough to make one eat pizza and drink.

(Images of Bob voting courtesy Google image search, shamelessly stolen from AP, the BBC and other major media. If you feel your copyright has been unfairly infringed pick up the phone now and give us a call with your cease and desist order. Operators are standing by, eagerly waiting to hear from you at 1-800-LITIGATE. Call now to take advantage of this one-time-only offer!)

UPDATE: Late on the evening of the day of fools our correspondent, usually irrepressible but now sounding to us rather battered and beaten down, sends these further words:

It's enough now. Running around to press conferences that never happen, swamped by rumors, watching the state machinery gain ground as we all somehow imagine that some sense will prevail. I think Bob will declare himself the winner and say 'fuck you all.' I still harbor some hope but it is dwindling fast into the cynicism of previous election defeats. I was black listed -aka white listed - from covering the elections, for a byzantine number of reasons that left me in a state of enraged defeat. A good meal would not go amiss, along with a proper night's sleep.

Much as we would like to bring our correspondent in for some much needed R & R, the story is still unfolding.

A Very Wet New Year

As the illusory "value" in the stock market swirls clockwise down the proverbial toilet our Zimbabwe correspondent writes in to put life in perspective, noting that "we reckon the global crunch will easily be absorbed by Zimbabwe without a flicker."

Our conversation ended when the electricity in Harare was unexpectedly turned on: "great excitement I have electricity so must rush and do stuff!! I think it is called the Stockholm Syndrome when you are so grateful to your kidnapper for letting you have electricity for a nano-second."

The IMF, not usually quoted here, estimates that inflation in Zimbabwe is now running at 150,000% per annum.

Well its been a helluva year already. Just recovering from tick bite fever I got over Christmas on holiday in the lowveld. A fabulous cheap lodge on the Save overlooking a lush green Gona Rhe Zhou that we couldnt get to due to the rising waters. It has been the mother of all rainy seasons with Mozambique awash with the Zambezi waters. And all the crops now collapsing in the fields. I woke to the mother of all headaches and couldnt move which I felt was a bit much for flu. Anyway the great black festering hole in my stomach is slowly going but the fever still lingers.

The Save River in Flood

Two Elephants were swept away in the flooding


We now have the 10 million dollar bill. That would be 10 trillion if you put the zeros [removed in the course of devaluation] back on again. So we now have the reintroduced 200,000, the 250,000, 500,000, 750,000 and the 5 million and 10 million. All looking rather similar and in short supply so endles queues of people waiting to get their money out the bank. The governor of the reserve bank blames the banks for not getting to the reserve bank fast enough to take out the cash. I have yet to get a note higher than the 750,000. [currently worth about twenty cents at the street market exchange rate].

Impassable road in the lowveld (All Photos: Mafushwa)

Anyway I now have a headache again, more malaise than tick I expect. Probably because of the bank queues and empty shelves.

Which country are you in?




...

That will be one hundred and twenty million, please....

Our Zimbabwe correspondent sends this picture of a gentleman simultaneously doing his weightlifting exercises and paying the modest tab for a party of four at a Harare eatery where, miraculously, some food and drink was actually available. These days the sealed plastic bags of bills, known as "bricks," are rarely opened. Worth ten million, the brick itself has become an unofficial unit of currency.

Shopping in Zimbabwe

From our Harare correspondent comes this bit of hidden camera work documenting just how dire things have gotten in the former breadbasket of Africa.

Cappuccino still available

Zimbabwe literally out of bread.


...

From our Zimbabwe correspondent...

Our good buddy in Harare, whose fortitude in the face of chaos and mayhem continues to boggle this western mind, sent the following. Things are, staggeringly, even worse than they were last time we had an update.

F#*K, its beginning to get me down. Inflation at 7,000% but with the added joy of price controls which means even if you did have the cash there's nothing to buy. No meat, chicken, eggs, milk, bread, fuel....and no beer! Each morning starts with a hunting gathering expedition. Join a milk queue then become overjoyed when someone finds you bread. Utter misery for the average civil servant who once had a standard of living. Most people die at home as the hospitals turn them away as they have no medicine, or broken facilities. God forbid you should be on ARV's. Shortages on state roll out and millions required to purchase at the pharmacy. But luckily luxury lodges going up on the Zambezi and the rich just get richer. But I can still get a cappuccino and go to the Zimbabwe International film festival. Avoiding the Chinese and Iran propaganda entries. (That's all for now,) am off to another bread queue with riot police....

And you thought it was crazy in Antarctica...

Just heard from my friend M... in Zimbabwe. When I visited about ten years ago the two of us had an incredible safari in Mana Pools National Park, sitting next to the Zambezi River eating biltong and Ramen noodles and watching wildlife for days. Shortly thereafter the crap totally hit the ventilator, but M... still manages to live there somehow.

M... writes:

A little slow on the net here. Just waiting for govt to pass the interception bill so they can read anyone’s mail. Was wondering if you were freezing your ass off or hanging from crumbling ice flows.
Still in Zim and if we had fewer power cuts and more fuel I would be able to make a more substantial contribution to the destruction of the ozone!
Its as loopy as ever here. Just had the Zimbabwe International Film Festival! The digital technology workshop would have been interesting if it hadn't been for the simultaneous defence force re-enactment of a helicopter battle. It was the Harare agricultural show but the only thing they had to show was a military display. Inflation running at about 1300% and the Reserve Bank just chopped 3 noughts off the currency. So whilst people were bringing in their old money to change – which you couldn’t as they hadn't printed enough or if you didn’t have a bank account you couldn’t change your money! – they then introduced a law saying it was illegal to carry more than a 100 million on you. (Black market rate 700,000 to the US$) So road blocks everywhere as the police proceeded to help themselves to mostly poor people and traders “illegal” cash as they attempted to get to the bank before it all got stolen. Now we have 1 dollar and 1 cent notes which they cant print enough of so there is never any change and they have managed to make the 10000 look like the 1000..well the numerically challenged like moi finds it difficult. Plus the 1 cent has a minus value as the paper it is printed on is worth more. And now the Minister of Finance who is fighting with the Governor of the Reserve Bank has said the 3 noughts will be back by Christmas. The governor, bless him, is now building a new home. A simple 40 room mansion, with a guest lodge, 5 swimming pools, a gym and a cinema. Not forgetting the helipad.
Just had a week in Mana..in a lodge! Did have to throw my chair at a hyena that came too close to my boervoors. One tourist was trampled to death by a mother elephant. Saw lion and wild dog. Went on game walks and lion tracking walks.A must on your next visit. And canoeing. My first and last time paddling upstream in a broken national parks canoe through endless pods of hippos and huge crocodiles. Happily I had the guide with the A-K. Some campers now have solar powered electric fences around their tents and cooler boxes to protect them from the monkeys and baboons. A matter of time before that doesn’t work.

M... included this photo as a reminder of places that have birds, and grass, and bamboo.Photo credit withheld to protect independent journalism in Zimbabwe

Thanks for the update and stay safe; we're thinking about you!