To date, Zimbabwe’s leading political parties, Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), have failed to find enough common ground for official talks. For more than a year South African President Thabo Mbeki’s office has told critics that there are talks, or talks about talks, going on. In reality that has turned out to be empty talk. Mugabe is skilfully dancing around Zimbabwe’s issues
while Africa obligingly turns a blind eye.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s brag about a bumper harvest this season received a major jolt this week as a report from the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) said 2,3-million people will need food aid this year. Mugabe’s government maintains the country will produce 2,4-million tonnes of maize, against 1,2-million tonnes forecast by aid agencies.
It helps to be an optimist if you are Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, but Gideon Gono is perhaps reading too much into his early successes. Gono acknowledged that the economy had been through a rough patch in the past years, but added, "In the same breath I can attest to the world that the Zimbabwean economy is now on the mend. We have bottomed out and it’s definitely looking up."