Mugabe Feasts While People Starve

While his country starves and lives in fear of a cholera outbreak, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and delegates to a conference held by his political party, the Zanu-PF, will gorge on a feast of 124 cattle, 81 goats and 18 pigs over four days, reports Time. Geoffrey Nyarota, managing editor of thezimbabwetimes.com, points out that with 5,000 delegates, the math worked out to “40 delegates per bovine over four days – that is not to mention the pork, the goat, the maize-meal, the rice among other basic foodstuffs in acute shortage throughout Zimbabwe.” In the meantime, Mugabe’s Marxist party has stood by as 1,111 people have died of cholera, with a further 20,580 people infected, according to the latest UN figures. The UN estimates that 5.8 million of Zimbabwe’s 12 million population will need food aid during the first quarter of 2009.