Oaths and Recriminations

"Political violence must end today", said Morgan Tsvangirai as he took an oath of office in front of Harare's State House. His tens of thousands of supporters there in attendance to witness the longed-for event heard him out with great satisfaction, no doubt. "We can no longer afford brother against brother, because one happened to have a different political opinion."

The man who was tried and acquitted of treason against the state, who suffered arrest, incarceration and beatings has finally won his way into the government of Zimbabwe. How much further could that country possibly surrender into failure? An unendurable inflation rate, a collapsed economy, an unsupportable unemployment rate, scarcity of food, and a dreadful medical epidemic out of control?

"From the end of this month, every health worker, every teacher, every soldier, every policeman will be paid in foreign currency", pledged Mr. Tsvangirai, as Zimbabwe's prime minister in the new power-sharing government. All those public servants would swear allegiance to anyone who could guarantee them pay in guaranteed currency, not Zimbabwe's vastly devalued ZWD.

Zimbabwe's hyperinflation will not be easily solved, nor its agricultural base built back to what it was, before Robert Mugabe's move to destroy it, through his government's persecution of the country's white farmers, forced off their land so it could be occupied by his supporters, supremely inept, disinterested in farming, allowing the fertile fields to rot, and Zimbabweans to lose their farm jobs, the country its former cornucopia status.

The people of Zimbabwe may very well have great expectations for the new government's ability to forge ahead into a more promising future, but given the dire straits of the economy, it will be a long hard slog forward, needing a massive infusion of international funding. Their need and the opportunity to assist coming at the very juncture where global financial systems are in severe decline.

There was, however, a certain element of bleak, black humour, unintended as it was, injected into the ceremonies inducting Mr. Tsvangirai finally into the government, when the master of ceremonies unctuously spoke of Mr. Mugabe as "a statesman of great luminous vision and hope, indeed a man of distinction", as President Mugabe administered the oath to Mr. Tsvangirai.

With no doubt some inner misgivings, leavened by the committed knowledge that he would, once some degree of stability could be restored to the country, take future steps to edge him out of the power base he now enjoys, as he has done in the past.