A Tragic Tale of "Gold for Bread"
A Tragic Tale of “Gold for Bread”
March 26, 2009
A powerful video appeared on YouTube a couple of weeks ago on the current political and financial crisis in Zimbabwe.
It’s called “Gold for Bread” and this title says it all—hyperinflation has rendered the Zimbabwean currency so worthless that desperate citizens, young and old, have to spend long days laboring in rudimentary gold mines just to be able to buy a day’s worth of food for themselves and their dependents.
The video was shot in early March by Sam Chakaipa, a Zimbabwean who’s an activist for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and shows the terrible state of the country under President Robert Mugabe.
Watch the video below:
Zimbabwe’s current plight is a good example of why we work with groups like the International Crisis Group. Crisis Group, which seeks to avoid and address conflict around the world, has played a key role in facilitating negotiations between political parties in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe was once one of the wealthiest and most productive countries in Africa, but more than two decades of kleptocracy and de facto dictatorship under Mugabe has left the country economically and politically bankrupt.
It is the important work of people like Sam Chakaipa and groups like Crisis Group that will enable Zimbabwe to return to its productive past and allow its people to flourish, not merely survive through back-breaking work in gold mines.
