Zimbabwe drops 10 zeros from inflated currency

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-31 14:52

At the root, he said, is the damage to the farming sector, along with government raids on the state pension fund and foreign currency bank accounts of businesses.

Zimbabwe's trials began nearly a decade ago when white farmers who were the driving force of the economy started supporting Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Mugabe sent supporters to violently invade white-owned farms, saying he was reclaiming ancestral lands for poor black peasants.

Instead, the land went to Mugabe's Cabinet ministers and generals, who left the fields untended. Hundreds of thousands of farm laborers lost their jobs and homes. Today, a third of Zimbabwe's people depend on foreign food aid in a country that once exported food to its neighbors.

Mugabe blames the economic collapse on profiteers and on sanctions by the United States and the European Union.

The worsening conditions have eroded the popularity of Mugabe, who has ruled for 28 years and was long revered for leading Zimbabwe to independence in 1980. He finished second in a March presidential ballot behind Tsvangirai, but won the June runoff after his rival dropped out after violence killed more than 120 opposition activists. Both men now claim the presidency.

In his interview with Channel 4, Tsvangirai said the two leaders had a 90-minute dinner together last week.

"I am sure that there was a common understanding that there is a need to soft land the crisis through a transitional process," he said

South African President Thabo Mbeki flew in to Zimbabwe on Wednesday in yet another bid to mediate in the crisis.

Power-sharing talks that began last week have deadlocked over Mugabe's insistence that he lead any unity government and over what position Tsvangirai should hold in a new administration, according to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an agreed media blackout.

"We are still negotiating; we want to succeed," Mugabe said in his broadcast address. "You find room for compromise but sometimes compromise is difficult."

Mbeki told reporters after meeting with Mugabe that talks would resume Sunday in South Africa.

Tsvangirai's party said Wednesday that two more opposition supporters were killed last week, allegedly by Mugabe's followers. "The deaths show that there is no sincerity on the part" of the ruling ZANU-PF party, the opposition said in a statement.

But in his interview, Tsvangirai softened his rhetoric about Mugabe, who the opposition has blamed for the widespread violence.

"He is just as human as every one of us, that he has similar concerns, although, of course, I think he is ignorant, and/or chooses to be in a denial stage as far as violence is concerned," said Tsvangirai, who has been accused of treason, beaten and survived assassination attempts by Mugabe loyalists.

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