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A new beginning in Zimbabwe?
[Mail and Globe] Schools and hospitals returning to life. Food in the supermarkets and queues at the tills. Investors flying in and refugees coming home. Independent newspapers due for launch and international media broadcasting openly. Book fairs, poetry slams and jazz festivals drawing crowds. A president and prime minister laughing together as they call for national healing. This is Zimbabwe in August 2009. Politically motivated beatings turning families against themselves. Villagers bartering chickens in the absence of a new currency. MPs, lawyers, journalists and students under arrest. Corruption rampant and another cholera outbreak predicted. A president rebuilding his tools of oppression and a prime minister said to be in danger of assassination. This, too, is Zimbabwe in August 2009. Six months after Robert Mugabe and his arch-rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, publicly swallowed their enmity and tried to speak with one voice, southern Africa's problem country is still a contradictory and confusing place. "We are at a fork [in the road]," said Tendai Biti, Tsvangirai's most powerful lieutenant. "Going left could be going towards a new Zimbabwe. Going right could be doing a cul-de-sac and going back to square zero." Posted by: Fred 2009-08-11 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=276298 |