Zimbabwe runs out of bread | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Zimbabwe runs out of bread

And pretty much everything else.

I worked in Harare in the early 90s, and it wasn't a bad assignment at all. The people there were pleasant to deal with and the country was modernizing. It was was light years ahead of neighboring Mozambique. Now the situation has reversed, and Zimbabwe is depending on Mozambique for food and energy.

There were already some weird things creeping in at that time. The laws of the land imposed severe criminal sanctions on the import of such items as plutonium, assault weapons, and Pepsi-Cola. I'm not kidding about the Pepsi. President Mugabe's family was in bed with Coke.