Mugabes wasteland

Level 3 Advanced
1

Key words

Fill the gaps using these key words from the text.
exile
entrenched

thriving
capitalize

flush
eradicate

delusion
looming

malnutrition
erode

1. If you ____________ on a situation, you use it to help you achieve something or to gain an advantage.
2. If an economy or business is described as ____________, it is extremely successful.
3. If you are ____________ with money or food, you have a lot of it.
4. An ____________ is a person who is forced to live in a foreign country for political reasons.
5. If something is ____________, its strength or importance is gradually reduced.
6. A ____________ crisis is one that is likely to happen very soon.
7. To ____________ something means to get rid of it completely.
8. If someone is ____________, they are resistant to change and unlikely to move.
9. ____________ is a medical condition in which people are ill because they do not have enough to eat.
10. A ____________ is a mental condition in which people believe things which are not true.

What do you know?

Are these statements about Zimbabwe True (T) or False (F)? Check your answers in the text.

1. Most Zimbabweans who leave the country go to South Africa.

2. Zimbabwe has the worlds second highest inflation rate.
3. Robert Mugabe is the prime minister of Zimbabwe.
4. The IMF predicts that prices in Zimbabwe could rise by 400% this year.
5. Two-thirds of the population of Zimbabwe live on 60p or less a day.

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NEWS LESSONS / Mugabes wasteland / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

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6. A lot of tourists still visit Zimbabwe.

Mugabes wasteland
Level 3 Advanced
opponents.
4

It is not only the poor who rely on money from

abroad. Even in some of Zimbabwes larger
cities, such as Bulawayo, a once prosperous
middle class has largely been eradicated by the
fastest shrinking economy in the world. A couple
of years ago the supermarket shelves were bare
but the problem today is not so much supply as
the cash to afford what is available.

Felix Mafa, a 60-year-old former college lecturer

in Bulawayo, has sold his cars and relies on a
son who is a doctor in the US and another who
is a shop manager in Namibia to send money
to feed the rest of the family. Instead of being
independent I am sustained by my children,
he said. Im a professional. I had cars and
two houses. I sold my cars to pay for my other
children to go to school. I gave one of my houses
to my eldest son. He is married and cannot afford
a bed, let alone a house.

Mr Mugabe has hailed the violent seizure of

white-owned farms that were once crucial to
feeding the country, and their redistribution to
small-scale black farmers and the ruling party
elite, as completed successfully. He declared
that the farmers have produced a bumper
harvest. Zimbabwes president has also boasted
that the economy is being wrestled from foreign
control and his finance minister predicted
economic growth this year. But the reality was
described by Mr Mugabes ally, the reserve bank
governor, Gideon Gono, who told parliament
he is struggling to keep electricity on. He said
there is no money to keep air force planes in
the air, or to put unserviceable police cars back
on the road. And 300,000 people are waiting for
passports because there is no paper or ink to
issue them. Mr Gono warned that inflation could
drive Zimbabwes economy down to levels never
dreamt before. The International Monetary Fund
(IMF) predicts that prices could rise by 4,000%
this year.

The reserve bank governor said he received

constant pleas from food and petrol distributors,

At the end of a week that saw protests violently

crushed, Chris McGreal reports from Bulawayo
on a nation sliding into chaos
March 17, 2007
1 Most Zimbabweans who can have left the
country in search of a means of survival, or at
least made plans to do so. The bulk of those who
leave slip into South Africa, posing as tourists
and traders. But anywhere that might offer the
prospect of a job is a destination: Namibia,
Botswana, London. The money these exiles send
back to their families in Zimbabwe is staving off
the total collapse of an economy subjected to the
worlds highest inflation rate and starved of hard
currency to keep basic services afloat.
2 Even some of President Robert Mugabes most
trusted allies are warning that his attempts to
paint Zimbabwe as thriving and flush with food is
a delusion as inflation wipes out the middle class
and malnutrition claims the lives of children in
what were once some of the countrys wealthiest
cities. The brutal reality of what the exiles have
left behind was laid bare when opposition leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai, and others were severely
beaten by the police and arrested on their way
to a mass protest against the government. The
opposition described the beatings as a turning
point in the struggle to force Mr Mugabe from
power.
3 Many ordinary Zimbabweans are not so sure.
Their president still looks firmly entrenched to
them and popular confidence in the opposition
has been weakened over the years since it
failed to capitalize on widespread anger when
Mr Mugabe stole the 2002 presidential election.
Today, in villages such as Mandluntsha, daily life
is instead consumed by the struggle to eat and
find the money for medicines and to keep the
children in school. With it there is a growing fear
that diminishing food supplies will soon again
be used as a political weapon by Mr Mugabes
Zanu-PF party against his most vulnerable

P
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NEWS LESSONS / Mugabes wasteland / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

N T
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The wasteland - inside Mugabes

crumbling state

Mugabes wasteland
Level 3 Advanced
the national airline and the railways for foreign
currency that has all but dried up because
tobacco exports, once Zimbabwes biggest
source of US dollars, have fallen to a fifth of
what they were before the land seizures. The
other big earner, tourism, has also collapsed.
Mr Gono said the power company warned him:
If you dont give us money the nation will be in
darkness.
8 But the money is not there and the banks
first priority is to use hard currency to buy
maize because famine is looming. Drought
and mismanagement has left Zimbabwe with
less than half of the maize it needs to feed the
country. If we were talking about local currency,
I would say, Dont worry, in the next 30 minutes
we will print money, said Mr Gono. But he said
he is not in a position to print American dollars or
British pounds.

Zimbabwes doctors went on strike for weeks

because their salaries eroded to the value of
seven cans of baked beans a month. They
returned to work only after their pay was
increased to about 110 a month - while twothirds of the population survives on 60p or less
a day. Many hospitals have lost more than half
their doctors, and nurses often report to work no
more than twice a week because they cannot
afford the bus fares. Bulawayos main hospital,
the UBH, has such a shortage of medicines that
patients are required to bring their own. There
are patients dying of dehydration for want of a
drip, said a doctor. We cant treat diabetes any
more. The nurses are unhappy because there
are no gloves when they are handling patients
with AIDS.
Guardian News and Media 2007
First published in The Guardian 17/03/07

3 Comprehension check
Choose the best answer according to the text.
1. What is currently preventing the total collapse of the Zimbabwean economy?
a. The use of food as a political weapon.
b. Money sent back to the country by Zimbabwean exiles abroad.
c. American dollars printed by the reserve bank.
2. Why are 300,000 people waiting for passports?
a. Because millions of people want to leave the country.
b. Because there is no paper or ink to produce passports.
c. Because the government is refusing to issue any more passports.
3. Why does Zimbabwe lack foreign currency?
a. Because the land seizures have led to a collapse in tobacco exports.
b. Because it has spent all its foreign currency on land seizures.
c. Because the electricity company has used it all.

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NEWS LESSONS / Mugabes wasteland / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

N T
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4. Why do nurses only work two days a week?

a. Because there are no doctors.
b. Because they have to handle patients with AIDS.
c. Because they cannot afford the bus fare to get to work every day.

Mugabes wasteland
Level 3 Advanced

4 Vocabulary 1: Find the word

Look in the text and find these words or expressions.

1. A two-word expression meaning to pretend to be. (Para 1)

2. An adverb meaning able to pay the money it owes. (Para 1)
3. An adjective meaning extremely violent. (Para 2)
4. A two-word expression meaning exposed. (Para 2)
5. An adjective meaning weak and easy to hurt mentally or physically. (Para 3)
6. An adjective meaning empty. (Para 4)
7. A noun meaning a small group of people who have a lot of power. (Para 6)
8. An adjective meaning bigger or more successful than usual. (Para 6)

5 Vocabulary 2: Phrasal verbs

1. slip in

a. services

2. drive down

b. to depend on

3. send back

c. to destroy or get rid of completely

4. stave off

d. to not take something with you when you leave a place

5. wipe out

e. to enter a place quickly without people noticing

6. leave behind

f. to gradually stop being available

7. rely on

g. to stop something from happening

8. dry up

h. to make a price or amount fall to a lower level

P
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NEWS LESSONS / Mugabes wasteland / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

N T
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Match the phrasal verbs from the text with their definitions.

Muagabes wasteland
Level 3 Advanced
6 Vocabulary 3: Adjective + noun collocations
Match the adjectives with the nouns. Check your answers in the text.
1. hard

a. services

2. basic

b. reality

3. middle

c. growth

4. trusted

d. anger

5. brutal

e. ally

6. mass

f. currency

7. economic

g. protest

8. widespread

h. class

7 Discussion

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NEWS LESSONS / Mugabes wasteland / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

N T
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What action should the outside world take to help Zimbabwe? Should other countries intervene to remove
Mugabe?