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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Zuma came, saw, showed Zim he cares |
| 2009-08-31 |
| Choosing his words carefully, and smiling his way through Zimbabwe's treacherous political terrain, President Jacob Zuma sweetened the public air for a few hours in Harare. That may have been all he could do during his visit on Thursday, because not much is going to change in the short term, in spite of Zuma's calming statement when he opened the Harare Agricultural Show, and his touchy-feely, fleeting engagement with the Zimbabwe "problem". President Robert Mugabe is going to continue obstructing where he can, and play to the gallery through the public media he still controls. And Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will remain "optimistic" and endure Mugabe's obstacle course with grace and poise. There will be no sudden turnaround nor miracle, at least while Mugabe remains in control of the levers of state power. It's the only power he has, as his constituency has pretty much disintegrated and almost everyone wants him to go. Tsvangirai was greeted with applause everywhere he went as he toured the show on Thursday. The crowds were polite but quiet when Mugabe took Zuma around the show the next day. The showgrounds were cleaner and brighter than for some years. There were even some hanging baskets of bright petunias around the Harare Show Society buildings which had been repainted. The entertainment in the Glamis Stadium, though shabby and amateurish, still thrilled the crowds. There were hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken and chips and children with painted faces. The crowds were mostly well-dressed families, looking as far removed from a repressed, hungry society as could be imagined. In the exhibition halls, entries were sparse, and each seemed to have won "first prize". There were some amusingly iced cakes, embroidered Manchester United wall hangings and a hand-made apron or two. Despite the last 10 years of economic collapse and misery, a few communal farmers, mostly women, using their own cash, had travelled hundreds of kilometres and put on displays of vegetables, grains, pulses and fruit which would compare with the best of the best anywhere. Zuma did not visit these women in his guided tour of the show, but the day before, Tsvangirai did. The women lamented to him that they had no fertiliser or money to buy any for this year's crops. He promised to find fertiliser for them. Maybe he will. They believed him, they said, as he went from cobs of rather poor quality maize to the Zimbabwe Airforce stand where he was told how their weapons worked. Beyond these barely visible green shoots, Zimbabwe faces its most precarious summer season ever. Not even Mugabe's cronies on stolen farms can raise cash for inputs this year. Zuma, a regular visitor to Zimbabwe when he was in exile in Lusaka, could not have avoided seeing evidence of the collapse of agriculture, the shabbiness of the streets. But he must have also noticed the people were having a good time. His main point in his show-opening speech was about the need for economic recovery so Zimbabwe could become what it had been, when he knew the country quite well, the "regional breadbasket". Few, including Mugabe, could have avoided concluding that Zuma was saying, in other words, leave productive farmers alone. But Zanu PF predictably only picked up, through the state media, Zuma's call for Western "sanctions" to be lifted. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, which has the only radio stations, did not record the second part of Zuma's sentence when he said that without full compliance with last September's political agreement, there would be no Western aid as the West had certain benchmarks about human rights and governance. At the end of his speech, Zuma noted, from the podium in the members enclosure, that Africa needs to respect human rights. One of the victims of Mugabe's disregard for human rights, Tsvangirai, was sitting a few feet away. Zuma noted there was more stability in Zimbabwe: that it had started a "healing" process, and referred obliquely, without naming it, to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He stroked the common bonds of "history and heritage". Some were disappointed that he didn't have tougher words for Mugabe. Maybe he did in private because it is impossible not to know that Mugabe continues to obstruct the power-sharing agreement as he tries to hold on to his only remaining power, the state. Maybe Zuma's greatest contribution on his visit to Zimbabwe, was to show, albeit briefly, that he cares. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #2 So long as he dies SOON, I don't care HOW. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-08-31 23:36 |
| #1 The good news is that change will happen when Bob is strung up. The bad news is that it will never happen, he will die revered. |
| Posted by: rhodesiafever 2009-08-31 23:09 |