Let Them Eat Giraffe

Zimbabwe: The litany of the United Nations' failures would not be complete without a mention of a country now so desperate that mobs there are willing to eat animals not normally consumed by humans.

Zimbabwe's official media reported Saturday that a giraffe wandered into the outskirts of the capital city of Harare. Hungry villagers, who would have apparently killed, cooked and eaten the towering, gentle beast had it not been rescued by police, saw it as a gift.

Tragically, they would have only been upholding a new tradition in their country.

"Wild animals have become the latest victim of this economic crisis," Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe conservation task force, told the London Telegraph.

"We are getting reports from all over the country about an increasing number of baby elephants, buffalo and other animals being killed or injured in snares."

Such is living in Zimbabwe, where food shortages due to President Robert Mugabe's malfeasance have become chronic. His policy of forced land redistribution over the past seven years has left the economy in shambles and has nearly wiped out wildlife on former private game ranches that were seized from their owners.

Hungry Zimbabweans have killed off 90% of the animals on those ranches, National Geographic reports, while 60% of the country's entire wildlife population has been slaughtered for food.

Zimbabwe is in ruins. It's been in a downward spiral for more than a decade. Mugabe's anti-market economic policies, particularly the seizure of private property, have been disastrous.

Most of the property owners who knew how to make economically profitable use of the land have been evicted.

Consequently, Zimbabwe's economy has declined by 35% to 40% since 2000. It will shrink another 5.7% this year and 3.6% next year, according to International Monetary Fund projections. Unemployment has now reached 80% and inflation is at 7,000% (though some independent estimates say it's more like 14,000%). Eight in 10 Zimbabweans live in absolute poverty.

Across the country, store shelves in a nation that was once a breadbasket are bare. On the infrequent occasions when shops are able to obtain scarce staple items, stampeding mobs are commonplace.

The whole world is watching -- except for maybe the U.N. and a majority of African leaders. When it was Africa's turn to chair the U.N. commission on sustainable development, that continent's nations turned to Zimbabwe as their representative and the U.N. allowed it. Zimbabwe has no development, sustainable or otherwise.

While famished Zimbabweans chase down impalas and leopards, U.N. delegates clink expensive stemware in midtown Manhattan and celebrate their greatness.

Improving conditions in Zimbabwe? That would require the removal of Mugabe, so it's not a project the U.N. is willing to undertake. The irredeemable U.N. tends to fete tyrants rather than punish them.