Stern test for Zim`s GNU!

The US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton has said the US will not resume aid to Zimbabwe for as long as there are no guarantees that it will reach the intended beneficiaries. She also added that it would be in the best interests of everyone if President Robert Mugabe leaves office. For a freshly inaugurated government that had pinned its hopes on the superpowers pumping in money into the economy, this is a hard blow. Mugabe and his cronies had hoped to pull the wool over the world by pretending to form a government of national unity. It is next to impossible for a leopard to change its spots.

Events in Zimbabwe are not getting much better. Political activists are still being hauled before courts under barbaric abductions and torture. Lawyers are wantonly being arrested for representing these political activists. The media is still gagged. Mugabe continues to hold on to the unilateral and unlawful appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney General. High court orders for release of political detainees are being flung out the windows. Prisoners are dying of hunger under inhuman conditions in custody. To make it worse, you could disappear for writting a piece like this one in Zimbabwe.

Hilary Clinton`s statements are a stern test to the existence of the newly formed Government of National unity (GNU). We know President Mugabe as having a very short fuse. He can easily snap with these statements and return to his tired mantra of the US plotting to invade Zimbabwe and some other gibberish about sovereighnity and sanctions. We also know that Mugabe`s cabal of Army, Police and Secret Police Generals who have so far stood by their word never to salute Morgan Tsvangirai as a national leader are frothing at the formation of the GNU. They want the slightest of excuses to bow out of the GNU. The regime that has ruled Zimbabwe over the last 3 decades had got so used to having it its way. They owned all the mining concessions, all the businesses, tourist attractions and related services. In 2000, they apportioned the whole country to themselves under the chaotic and often violent infamous land reform program.

Amazingly President Mugabe still commands unrivalled respect amongst the general populace of Africa. They see him as a hero, who has done what some (Especially South Africa) want to do but are unable to do. Speaking to a Zimbabwean journalist in London late last year, he told me that Africa was free to take Mugabe if they so wanted him. It seems Zimbabweans in general are fed up with the man.

Will he snap, or hold himself? The next few hours and days will tell. I will not be surprised if he snaps. His insatiable appetite to travel to Europe and the US has got him so angry that he has grown impatient over these countries for refusing him the chance to do so. Surely the owners of Harrods must be missing Grace Mugabe (Mugabes wife) as one of their most opulant, lavish and reckless spenders.