Karen Stafford, Worcester
There is no way of knowing with certainty that by buying goods from Zimbabwe you are not in some small way lining the pockets of a member of the country's current administration, or one of its supporters. The situation is muddied by the fact that many of Zimbabwe's once bountiful farms - which helped the country earn its former "breadbasket of Africa" moniker - are now in the hands of Robert Mugabe's "cronies", as they are often referred to. For example, in 2004 the former minister for mines, Edward Chindori-Chininga - who is now banned from entering the EU due to his alleged links to human rights abuses - was alleged by the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper to have seized the world's largest passion fruit farm in Mashonaland West, a farm that was said at the time to supply 38% of the passion fruit consumed in Europe.
