Corruption in government is universal. In Zimbabwe, people warn that speaking out against the government may lead to one's disappearance, but this doesn't prevent people from discussing the corruption of President Mugabe's administration. The consensus is that Mugabe's days are numbered, and he is busy consolidating the great personal wealth he squeezed out of Zimbabwe. Many think he has lost his mind, citing his expenditure of $50 million dollars daily on a neo-colonial war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at a time when Zimbabweans are struggling to survive. Also, he recently went on a two-week Christmas shopping spree in Europe, where it is said he spent millions.

Zimbabwe is one of the world's richest countries in terms of gold, platinum, wildlife, and other natural resources; however, most of the people live in poverty--despite the fact that those who have jobs often work six ten-hour days per week. Foreign companies, with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, extract the wealth, paying the workers barely subsistence wages.

Before disbursing a loan, the World Bank and the IMF require that the government must sell off any publicly-owned businesses or property and cut social spending. In Zimbabwe, the free universal healthcare won in the 1980 revolution was eliminated. Loan money disbursed to government officials often goes directly into their personal accounts; they live quite comfortably, while the majority of people continue in abject poverty. Eventually, when leaders die or are driven from power, these government officials leave the country with the money they embezzled. Back home, the country is left in poverty, but now with large loans and interest payments that must be repaid.

To ensure the interest payments are made, the IMF and World Bank implement a Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), which means eliminating schools, closing medical facilities, and cutting other social services. Remaining programs to improve sanitation and provide clean water--which survived cuts that were mandated under the original loan package--are eliminated. Because of the earlier privatization, the government has no income other than taxation of the people to meet interest payments. Thus the people who were barely surviving are further enslaved with increasing taxes.

In Zimbabwe, most people don't have bank accounts or any social security, and the unemployment rate is 50%. Add to this the IMF and World Bank policy of devaluing the national currency against the hard currency (U.S. dollars) that the loan must be repaid in, and you have a perpetual nation of slaves striving to pay off mounting debts. Typically, a nation must repay the loan principal many times over.

Poverty directly causes disease through malnutrition, a lack of sanitation, and a lack of clean water. Corrupt leaders use the misery they directly cause to call for more international aid in the form of loans or donations. The money comes in, the leaders become richer, and the people and health clinics receive very little. Statistics in Zimbabwe indicate that 700 people die of AIDS each week. The truth is that people with serious but treatable illnesses are turned away from clinics and hospitals if they are unable to pay for care, and then when they die, they are added to AIDS statistics. The numbers vary for different countries in Africa, but the pattern is the same. People are clearly dying, but the cause of their deaths is blamed on a virus rather than on the true problem: poverty. To decrease disease, the underlying problem of poverty must be eliminated, instead of promoting ill-conceived programs to send condoms and anti-viral drugs to Africa so that wealthy companies profit.

Economic aid to Africa has several purposes. The bottom line is that someone is making a great deal of money. This is accomplished through a simple mechanism: by first corrupting the leaders of developing countries and then paying these leaders off, so that natural resources can be extracted from the land and robbed from the people. Donations of food have a similar effect, as corrupt government officials distribute it only to people and companies that support the government. AIDS is being used today as hunger was used in the past--to stimulate public support for sending tax money to Africa. It's an emotionally powerful tool to convince caring people to send money to help when, in fact, most of our tax money gets diverted to subsidize companies who extract foreign wealth. Few aid programs actually help the poor in Africa.

In Zimbabwe as in South Africa, most working people live in townships or ghettoes. Conditions are crowded. Small homes house at least 13 people. Diets are low in vitamins and minerals. Most of the people in Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa are poor, and can barely afford to eat enough calories to survive; they rarely eat vegetables, which are necessary to provide essential nutrients. Malnutrition weakens the immune system, and may contribute to illnesses otherwise conveniently ascribed to AIDS. There are numerous other contributing factors to AIDS in Africa. For example, it has been proven that the South African police force is involved in distributing drugs, which has caused drug use to become rampant there. Alcoholism also contributes significantly to disease in Africa.

In Africa, where there's a lack of funds and infrastructure for proper AIDS testing, AIDS is often diagnosed by the presence of four symptoms: weight loss, persistent cough, diarrhea, and fever. These symptoms are caused by many diseases of malnutrition found in impoverished areas, including: TB, cholera, dysentery, malaria, and parasites. African healthcare workers who speak out and say that poverty rather than a virus is the main cause of "AIDS deaths" lose their positions in clinics. Corrupt leaders want to assure the influx of aid money, so they demand that everyone play along with the aid agencies and call for more international funds to treat AIDS. Money to treat malnutrition is less available than money to treat the current issue emblazoned in minds worldwide by the media.

The only way to decrease disease in Africa is to eliminate poverty. The only way to eliminate poverty is for us to stop interfering with the autonomy of other nations, and to stop subsidizing companies and those they corrupt, who together rob resources from the people.