The Chinese are in Africa for business, raw materials and to shore up African support over Taiwan and other matters of Chinese concern in the United Nations. They do not care if a state abuses human rights, but nor do they like instability and conflict that may interfere with the viability of their investments. Zimbabwe is important only inasmuch as it helps the Chinese project.
Zimbabwe is reeling under a legacy of a racially skewed pattern of land ownership and access. The injustice harks back to Cecil John Rhodes, whose British South African Company "successfully" shut blacks in "native reserves" and placed three-quarters of the land in the hands of white farmers.
There will be three great foreign policy issues facing a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe — its relations with the West, especially economic relations; its relationship with the Chinese; and its relationship with South Africa, writes Stephen Chan. Rebuilding links with the West, severed or damaged by Mugabe, will take time and patience.
No one should be surprised any longer to learn that South Africa is a front in the United States-led war on terror. The revelation that Khalid Rashid has been detained in Pakistan for alleged links to the London Underground bombings of July 7 2005 is only the most recent indication of the quiet battle going on in this country.
”If I sound like an Afro-pessimist, nothing could be more wrong. There are countries that serve as examples of what can be achieved in a new Zimbabwe,” writes Geoff Hill. ”Can Zimbabwe be rebuilt in the short term? Yes, definitely yes! Rwanda and Somaliland are proof.”
Alex Ferguson is confident his Manchester United squad will hold their nerve to close out the Premiership title battle after watching them edge closer to the finishing line with a clinical win over struggling Sheffield United. The United manager was unhappy with the challenge by Colin Kazim-Richards that sent Patrice Evra to hospital for a scan on a calf injury.
The global image of the American school was once of wholesome youths laden with books and cheerleader pompoms. More recently it has become one of over-armed and overweight policemen racing to take up firing positions while students run screaming with terror.
One must ask if Zimbabwe’s white farmers deserved their fate. And did their workers, so well manipulated by political deceit, deserve to be left homeless and suffering? The answers are both yes and no. Land-hungry peasants have been used as instruments of a gigantic kleptocracy led by Mugabe and his cronies.
”It turns out that I’m not the first man delivered to the police chief on the back of this pickup. The last one was a labourer, caught overcharging for the farmer’s tomatoes at the local market.” On the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Mark Ashurst observes an unwritten constitution at work.
Click on image for full-size view.