[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 144 (Wednesday, October 15, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S12600]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CRISIS IN ZIMBABWE

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I want to call the Senate's attention to 
the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. For years now, the Government of 
Zimbabwe, led by President Robert Mugabe, has pursued policies 
characterized by repression, brutality, corruption and mismanagement. 
The costs to the people of Zimbabwe have been terribly steep. Alongside 
intimidation and repression, Zimbabweans must contend with the economic 
consequences of this disaster. According to The Economist magazine, the 
country's GDP has shrunk by a third in the past 3 years; inflation has 
surged over 420 percent and 70 percent of the population lives in 
poverty. A country that should be an engine of growth in the region has 
instead become an anchor, dragging down the prospects for increased 
investment and prosperity. A people that should have been able to unite 
and focus their energies on fighting the AIDS pandemic that threatens 
their society is instead coping with the systematic destruction of the 
rule of law within their borders.
  Mugabe's government would like the world to believe that it is 
pursuing a policy of defiance, charting an independent course, and 
refusing to be bullied by westerners. But this is a smokescreen, a 
distraction from the fact that when voters are intimidated, it is not 
the West that is defied, it is the will of the Zimbabwean people. When 
journalists are tortured and independent media outlets--most recently 
the popular Daily News--shut down, the bully is not the West, it is the 
Government of Zimbabwe. There is nothing heroic or revolutionary about 
the policies pursued by Mugabe's government. Sadly, they are taken from 
the familiar playbook used for decades by self-serving, dictatorial 
governments around the world.
  Secretary of State Powell was right to call on African leaders, and 
especially South African President Thabo Mbeki, to take a stronger 
position on the crisis and to re-energize their efforts to help resolve 
it. Make no mistake, these leaders are not indifferent to the problem. 
They are coping with waves of Zimbabwean migrants fleeing persecution 
and the hopelessness of complete economic collapse. They are struggling 
against the downward force of the economic maelstrom across their 
borders. But quiet diplomacy is not working, and Zimbabweans continue 
to suffer. I urge African leaders to tell it like it is, and to express 
their solidarity with the Zimbabwean people, not the disgraced and 
corrupt Zimbabwean Government.

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