Can $ be rescued without fundamental change?

HARARE - Zimbabwe’s battered currency has plunged to a historic low as black market rates raced to Z$1,600/U.S. dollars yesterday, more than three times the $250 official rate quoted at central bank controlled auctions - sparking fears that inflation will once again spiral out of control.

This is the first time in history that the rate has breached the $1,600 barrier. In 1980, the Zimbabwe dollar was trading stronger than the U.S. dollar.

HARARE - Four detectives from the Law and Order Section of the Zimbabwe Republic Police this week visited the distribution offices of The Zimbabwean in Harare and demanded information and a statement from the proprietor.

They were particularly interested in last week’s issue whose front page story outlined the tensions between the army and the police after the arrest of a former army commander for alleged corruption at the state grain monopoly, the Grain Marketing Board.

The detectives took away documents pertaining to the importation of the weekly newspaper from South Africa, where the southern African edition is printed.

The UK-based publisher, Wilf Mbanga, said yesterday his paper would not be intimidated by any “bully-boy tactics on the part of the police or anybody else.”

“Our mandate is to be a beacon for freedom of expression and of the press in Zimbabwe and we intent to continue doing that, no matter what.”

Meanwhile, government has stepped up its crackdown against perceived opponents, ransacking the offices of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) reportedly looking for firearms and weapons of war.

The search at CHRA’s Daventry House headquarters and the ZCTU’s Chester House headquarters in central Harare in the past week followed mass protests organized by the two civic groups against government’s ruinous handling of the economy.

Plain-clothes secret police spent the whole of last week at the CHRA’s head office, monitoring the movement of people in and out of the building. – The Zimbabwean