• INTERFACE - SABC 3
• Mugabe buys time in grim endgame
• Mugabe's iron fist betrays his flimsy grip
• Mbeki's G8 report card: The good, the better and no Zimbabwe
• This is just the start, says MDC
• State militias block MDC's D-day protest
• How long can Mugabe cling on by brute force alone?
• Four corners
• Secret talks?
• Prayers for Peace

Like many of Harare's residents, Morgan Mathuthu is dazed and confused by
this week's events. A casual trip on Monday to buy food at his local
supermarket in the Chitungwiza district turned into a four-day nightmare
that left him scarred, bruised and charged under Zimbabwe's Miscellaneous
Act.

"A police vehicle stopped in front of me. I was told to jump in and I ran
away. They fired two warning shots and I stopped. I was taken to St Mary's
Police Station, where I was beaten up. There was no talking as to why they
were doing this to me," Mathuthu, 38, said.

Later that evening, he and a group of other detainees were taken to the
Central and Rhodesville police stations, both of which were full.

They were driven back to St Mary's and ordered to sleep on the floor of a
cell with 87 other people.

"During the night, anyone who walked in would just beat us up," Mathuthu
said. He was released on Thursday, with a bizarre warning: if he wanted a
British ruler, he should go to London.

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change this week called for
week-long mass protests aimed at forcing President Robert Mugabe to vacate
office. The veteran politician countered by deploying the army, police, war
veterans and his Zanu-PF party youth-militia to bludgeon any resistance or
civil disobedience.

The first day of the MDC's "final push" saw opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai fall victim to Mugabe's mastery and increasing repression.

Tsvangirai, who was meant to lead the march on Mugabe's administrative
office in central Harare with senior leaders of his party, was detained for
defying a court injunction to stop the proposed protests.

The order, dismissed by the opposition as a "candle-light judgment", came
two days after the government had deployed soldiers to crush "illegal
protests" on the streets of Bulawayo and Harare.

Despite a thirst for change, Tsvangirai's arrest and the massive deployment
of army units inevitably raised fears among his followers and the majority
of Zimbabweans about carrying out the proposed march.

Earlier warnings by Mugabe's ministers that security forces would act
harshly against demonstrators were fulfilled, and tanks were dispatched to
patrol the main urban centres, fortifying the strategy to frustrate the
momentum of the opposition.

Check points, manned by military police , were set up on all major roads to
stop people and traffic from filtering into the city centres.

Soldiers brandishing rifles and high-calibre weapons patrolled Harare's
streets in a show of force.

Motorists had to endure the frustration of delays at roadblocks, where
military police forced them to open car trunks and conducted body searches
for dangerous weapons, anti-Mugabe literature and opposition regalia.

This is the first time that Mugabe has used the army to crush civil unrest
since the outbreak of riots in 1998.

Unlike those spontaneous food riots - which caught the government unaware
and took two days to quell - the MDC's proposed march turned into another
job stay-away. People could not face the harshness of the security forces,
who have a long history of brutality.

Attempts to mobilise and march were met with brutal force - the streets were
cleared in just one day.

Job Sikhala, an MDC MP and national executive committee member, said the
protests were not a failure because his party showed the world who "called
the shots in Zimbabwe".

"There was virtually no business which took place this week. The message is
clear that Robert Mugabe is unpopular and unwanted in this country.

"The mass action was a success in that people refused to come out of their
houses, and by staying indoors they heeded our call to protest against
Mugabe's rule. Mugabe tried to urge people to report for work but people
refused to heed his appeal."

While infantrymen controlled roadblocks, Harare's skies thundered with
military choppers menacingly hovering to spy on possible flash points,
particularly in the city's impoverished townships, where the MDC's
stronghold lies. The helicopters also dropped tear gas on unregulated
gatherings.

Mugabe has publicly boasted of his willingness to use maximum force to
impose his policies, as shown by the harshness of his three-year land grab,
in which nearly all the country's white commercial farmers were evicted.

His imposition of force reached its zenith when he unleashed Israeli-made
tanks on hapless university students, already worrying about food and jobs,
and citizens in the increasingly restive townships of Harare.

In Bulawayo, troops stormed campus dormitories and gassed students, fearing
that they would aid the opposition protests. The students, along with
township residents, were beaten with truncheons. There are rising casualties
from assaults by the army and police.

The dreaded secret police singled out potential leaders of civil unrest,
routinely rounded them up, and used them as examples to would-be rioters.

The efficiency of the regime's vicious tactics yielded the desired result
for Mugabe, but feelings of ill will are now evident on the streets of
Harare. By Thursday, close to 300 opposition supporters had been jailed.

While there is a strong feeling within Zimbabwe that Mugabe must go, no one
seems prepared to stand up to his government's heavy-handedness.

Andrew Nongogo, the executive director of Transparency International
Zimbabwe, believes that the Mugabe government is increasingly relying on
force to counter the MDC.

"We are currently at an impasse between the moral high ground of the MDC and
the physical power of Zanu-PF. There has to be a spark of some nature before
those on the moral high ground feel that they no longer have to fear the
force. That spark didn't happen this week.

"The MDC has limited strategies because the government is prepared to use
any type of force to stop demonstrations, and the MDC just has to wait for
something to happen outside their party for people to go out fully on the
streets.

"They [the MDC] will have to rely on more force and brutality from the
government, which will ultimately make people go onto the streets on their
own, without having to wait for the MDC to tell them," he said.

Shopping malls in central Harare echoed with emptiness, market places were
deserted and motorists stayed off the road, as people, too frightened to go
about their normal activities, chose to stay indoors .

"The army's presence on the streets shows that the government is afraid of
the people. The use of force by this government shows how far Mugabe can go
to defend its illegitimacy, and the action of the police clearly shows that
they are not a professional, but a partisan, force," said Harare resident
Tawanda Ngwerume.

"Having to board a bus with armed soldiers is a sign of victimisation and
suppression. What we need is fuel and money, but Mugabe deploys soldiers
instead of sourcing foreign exchange to import basics."

Schools remained open, but very few teachers and learners bothered to attend
lessons. Ruling party fanatics, guarding school gates, forced teachers to
work despite many classes being half empty.

In one instance Zanu-PF supporters, who had been bussed in from the
countryside , swamped a private school 60km northwest of Harare.

They ordered the closure of the primary school on Thursday, accusing school
authorities of taking the precautionary measure of evacuating the school
ahead of the proposed protests.

The youth militia and war veterans had a mandate to interrogate people
roaming the streets, and to force businesses to open, despite the absence of
workers.

They also banned, burnt, confiscated and tore all newspapers outside state
control, as well as swooping on revellers at places of entertainment to
harass them for heeding the opposition's protest calls.

Bars, nightclubs and restaurants, most of which normally operate 24 hours,
were closed by 4pm, while a few remained open until 7pm. People fled the
possible terror unleashed on such venues after sunset.

Harare, known for its vibrant nightlife, was enveloped in heavy silence.
With increasing reports of widespread casual assaults by ruling party
functionaries, no one wanted the sun to set before they got home.

Informal taxis ran empty and the fuel queues, which have become a permanent
feature at all garages for the past two years, disappeared . Even
car-sellers removed vehicles from showrooms.

In the meantime, the state-run Zimbabwe United Passenger Company buses plied
their routes with up to four soldiers on board. The soldiers were armed with
assault rifles, especially Russian-made AK-47s.

By Thursday the government had changed its strategy, and secret police were
planted in buses so that the sight of soldiers would not deter people from
travelling.

Although businesses opened tentatively on Wednesday and Thursday after
Mugabe threatened to revoke operating licences, the toll on the economy has
intensified. By Tuesday, the local share market had lost potential revenue
in excess of $250-million .

Harare resident Vimbai Gora believes that the week of protest has given
Mugabe and his government a clear message: "If Mugabe really won the
elections, why is he afraid of the people who voted for him? We just want
him to know that we have had enough of him. We are tired of being beaten by
his soldiers and the police."

Ignoring Africa's problems won't make them go away, writes Ranjeni Munusamy

An exhausted President Thabo Mbeki was fascinating to observe upon his
return home from the G8 summit in Evian, France, as his usual cool, detached
demeanour made way for animated talk.

It was rare to see the President volunteer information to the media rather
than have journalists attempt to drag it out of him. But on this occasion ,
the information - perhaps because it was good news - came thick and fast.

The four African presidents who served as the chief advocates of the New
Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) apparently had the world's most
powerful leaders eating out of their hands: "There was no matter which we
presented to them on which they disagreed," said Mbeki.

This year's dialogue between Africa and the G8 took place in a troubled
global environment - the backdrop of the war in Iraq ; agitation over North
Korea; the Middle East crisis; and an unsettled global economy - competing
for the attention of the industrialised powers.

But Africa, Mbeki said, was the only part of the world with a conclusive
game plan for development. Nepad captured the imagination of the group of
industrialised nations, each of which has special personal representatives
working with the Nepad secretariat to flesh out its programmes.

So when Mbeki, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade and
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika went to Evian proposing actual
development projects - having discussed the principle of a partnership at
previous G8 encounters - the world powers were willing to bite.

Mbeki said what remained was for African leaders to work out the costing for
Nepad's programmes and to create an environment conducive to development. To
this end, it was agreed that a rapid deployment force would be set up for
peacekeeping missions. In addition, an early warning system and a peace and
security council would be established to manage conflict.

The G8 leaders also agreed to dedicate funds to water, agriculture and
health projects.

Playing on international goodwill, the African leaders raised concern over
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations that are deadlocked on the
issues of agriculture subsidies and access to affordable drugs.

Obasanjo told the meeting that he did not believe there would be any shift
without the direct intervention of the G8. The leaders agreed to resolve the
matter before a Cancun ministerial meeting scheduled for September.

They also committed to speeding up debt-cancellation processes to relieve
African countries from exporting capital to service debt.

British Finance Minister Gordon Brown proposed setting up an international
financing institution to centralise development funding. Mbeki said this
would eliminate the need for negotiations with different countries.

Asked whether there was anything that didn't go according to plan, Mbeki
conceded that some issues were left unresolved.

French President Jacques Chirac proposed a moratorium on the flow of
products from the developed world into Africa, pending the outcome of WTO
negotiations, to relieve pressure on Africa's markets. But a moratorium
would affect aid packages from the US, which donates its surplus food stocks
to countries with food shortages, so no agreement was reached.

Moving closer to home, Africa's capacity to spend funds donated for
development is of concern. Mbeki proposed the establishment of an
implementation arm for Nepad to ensure that capacity constraints don' t
hamper the rolling out of funds.

Although Mbeki did not broach the subject, some internal differences exist
between Nepad's merchants.

Wade, for example, would prefer Nepad to place greater emphasis on African
investment in Africa. His concerns related to the logic that whoever paid
the piper called the tune - and as things stood, the G8 could have a grip on
the African agenda.

A matter of more immediate concern was that Mbeki would have us believe that
the crisis in Zimbabwe was not even raised at Evian.

But the G8 leaders issued a carefully worded statement on Zimbabwe,
condemning the government's repression of the opposition and human rights.

Reading between the lines, it is clear that Zimbabwe was an issue in the
context of Nepad.

"Consistent with the fundamental principles of the Nepad partnership, we
welcomed the contribution of other African states to promoting a peaceful
resolution of the crisis and a prosperous and democratic future for the
people of Zimbabwe," they said.

It is safe to presume that Mbeki dished out his stock response on Zimbabwe -
we are trying to restart dialogue which both the government and opposition
are committed to, and that the people of Zimbabwe must decide their own fate
.

Mbeki seemed almost afraid to speak frankly about Zimbabwe, a stance at odds
with the fact that its political and economic explosion can no longer be
ignored.

Admitting that there was growing international pressure on Africa over
Zimbabwe, would not have countered or minimised his achievements.

The truth only works when it's the whole truth, not censored good news.

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai has vowed to intensify mass action against President Robert
Mugabe's regime.

Tsvangirai, who was arrested on Friday on a new treason charge, said the MDC
would now shift up a gear in its strategy to undermine Mugabe's government
following a five-day stayaway this week.

"From now onwards we will embark on rolling mass action at strategic times
of our choice and without any warning to the dictatorship," he said.

"The peaceful mass action that we embarked upon is the beginning of a new
multi-faceted phase towards a permanent resolution of the crisis."

The threat of further mass action is diminishing hopes for a negotiated
settlement to Zimbabwe's crisis.

But MDC spokesman Paul Themba-Nyathi said his party would still pursue
dialogue with the ruling Zanu-PF.

"We are still committed to talks because this is the only way to resolve
this matter."

But he denied South African President Thabo Mbeki's claim in Parliament this
week that dialogue was already under way.

He said his party was still awaiting direction from Mbeki, Nigeria's
Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawi's Bakili Muluzi, who were facilitating talks
between the parties.

The MDC was outmanoeuvred by the Zimbabwean government this week as security
forces suppressed the opposition's efforts to get its supporters to "rise in
your millions".

Mugabe's government fought the mass action in the courts and the streets,
and through a propaganda war in the media.

The police, the army, the ruling Zanu-PF's youth militias and intelligence
agents were all used to crush the MDC demonstrations.

But Tsvangirai said his campaign against Mugabe, code-named The Final Push,
showed that he commanded the will of the people, while his rival controlled
only the forces of coercion in the form of the state machinery.

"The regime responded with predictable brute force and mass reprisals," he
said.

When the mass action ended on Friday, Zanu-PF deployed hundreds of its youth
brigades, wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan "No to Mass Action", to combat
the MDC.

Through the week, Zanu-PF youths held sway in the streets, attacking MDC
supporters and by-standers.

Any symbols of resistance to Mugabe's rule - including independent
newspapers and minibus drivers who refused to carry people to work - became
their targets.

Arbitrary arrests, beatings, assaults, torture and intimidation of the
public by the security forces were the order of the day.

The army prevented injured people from receiving treatment at hospitals. On
Wednesday, security forces stormed Avenues Clinic in Harare.

"The gang was looking extremely charged and fired up, walking in a confusing
manner, shouting on top of their voices, getting into wards, including those
that are out of bounds to anyone other than hospital staff, grabbing people
violently and inflicting all sorts of verbal and physical abuse on them,"
said one of the victims at the clinic.

Two people were killed in the security crackdown. Police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena confirmed the deaths.

He vowed that the police would continue their crackdown on acts of
"sabotage, banditry and terrorism".

One of the men killed was Tichaona Gaguru, who was abducted and beaten by
soldiers. He subsequently died at Chikurubi police clinic.

When Gaguru's family held a funeral for him on Thursday, two days after his
death, his brother Kunaka was also attacked by Zanu-PF youths and suffered
serious injuries.

The other person who died, Amon Nyandongo, was stoned to death in Highfield
as security forces clashed with protesters.

By the end of the mass action, up to 500 people had been arrested, including
senior MDC officials, MPs and supporters.

"The people have been tortured, brutalised and murdered by a regime that is
meant to protect them," Tsvangirai said.

"The people's message of peace was met with blood and iron."

It had been dubbed Zimbabwe's D-day. But Zanu-PF youths swamped the streets
of Harare on Friday, the final day of the weeklong mass action, blocking the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change from marching in the streets.

Helicopters hovered above the city as the youths moved around clad in
T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Enough is enough: no to mass action",
brandished sticks and dispersed crowds on street corners.

Two thousand ruling party militiamen took up positions alongside soldiers
and paramilitary police. Some were posted at key intersections and others
patrolled the streets.

Army trucks and jeeps ferried soldiers through the city, while police in
patrol cars cruised city streets reporting any suspicious movements by radio
.

Hundreds of militia took up positions in the city's main square, where the
opposition leaders had called on supporters to gather.

About 100 Zanu-PF members were seen marching down one of the main streets
leading to the square, in an apparent attempt to block off the area. Others
guarded the entrances to the square.

Opposition officials said groups of supporters tried to gather in downtown
Harare, but did not proceed to the square because they were so heavily
outnumbered.

Some of the ruling party militias were seen shouting at people on the
street, demanding that shops observing a general strike in Harare be
reopened.

However, most businesses in Harare remained closed.

The strike shut down much of Zimbabwe's economy this week despite the
government's action against street demonstrations.

In the second city of Bulawayo, opposition officials said troops in full
combat gear were patrolling the streets.

The government vowed to crush the protest action, saying that a court order
banning anti-government demonstrations was still in force and that further
protests would be stopped, state television reported.

Speaking to reporters from his home shortly before being arrested for the
second time this week, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai suggested that further
protests would be organised underground.

"From now onwards, we will embark on rolling mass action at strategic times
of our choice and without any warning to the dictatorship," he said. "More
action is certainly on the way."

Tsvangirai also said the people had been heard this week and that the heavy
military response from Mugabe proved that only force was keeping him in
power.

"He has ceased to be a civilian leader . . . he is now a civilian dictator
propped up by sections of a subverted police and military," said Tsvangirai.

The opposition blames Mugabe for sinking the country into political and
economic ruin. There are shortages of food, medicine, fuel and currency, and
annual inflation stands at 269%. Widespread starvation has been avoided only
with international aid.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, speaking on state radio on Friday, warned
that people "bent on causing disorder will be dealt with decisively".

Nathan Shamuyarira, the ruling party's secretary for information, told state
media that the Zanu-PF politburo, its top policy-making body, recommended
"stringent security measures" to stop the protests.

"The time has now come for a showdown with the MDC. It was agreed that we
should also use the manpower resources in our movement to stop the MDC from
disrupting the economy," Shamuyarira told the state-run Herald newspaper.

A doctor who worked in the casualty section of a Harare hospital this week
said about 80 injured people were treated in the first three days.

"This week we have seen worse soft tissue injuries than ever before," he
added. "The beatings must have been very vicious. We have also seen many
orthopaedic injuries."

Scores of people were arrested throughout the country. On Wednesday,
Tichaona Kaguru, an official of the MDC in Harare, died after allegedly
being abducted and tortured by members of the security forces.

Brian Raftopoulos, a political scientist in Zimbabwe, said it appeared that
the sides were engaged in a standoff.

"[The mass action] proves the opposition can shut down the country and keep
people away from work, but the government has shown they can keep [the
opposition] off the streets," he said.

The MDC had called on its supporters to rise up.

"You have been harassed, abused, tortured and brutalised.

"Your leaders have been abducted and arrested. Rise up in your millions to
demonstrate publicly your utmost disapproval of this violent dictatorship,"
the opposition said in advertisements and fliers calling for mass marches on
Friday.

But Tsvangirai acknowledged that the show of force was intimidating.

"Maybe people were reluctant to take that step in view of the presence of
police and other state agents who overwhelmed them," he said.

Security forces using rifle butts, volleys of live fire, tear gas and water
cannons have so far prevented any large-scale street demonstrations.

Independent human- rights monitors said scores of people were injured as
police and troops patrolled impoverished township suburbs and, along with
ruling-party vigilantes, assaulted suspected opponents, often raiding their
homes at night.

Police said at least 300 people were arrested.

As Zimbabwe's president uses youngsters to crush opposition, parallels with
Hitler are hard to ignore, writes Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg

President Robert Mugabe, whose regime in disintegrating Zimbabwe becomes
more fascist by the day, publicly vowed to eliminate Morgan Tsvangirai 'like
a fly' shortly before the opposition leader was arrested on fresh treason
charges that carry the death penalty.
Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), yesterday
appeared in a Harare court to be charged formally with treason for inciting
the overthrow of Mugabe during last week's five-day anti-government work
stayaway. Tsvangirai is already on trial for treason -- and has been since
February -- facing trumped-up state charges that he plotted to assassinate
Mugabe.

'[The MDC] called on urban people to embark on mass action and march to
State House to strip me of the presidency and give it to Tsvangirai,' Mugabe
told a rural rally shortly before Tsvangirai was arrested by police on
Friday evening. 'They thought I would be sitting on a chair waiting for boss
Tsvangirai to come. They thought I would open the gates in preparation for
his arrival and instruct soldiers and policemen [guarding State House] to
put down their guns.'

Mugabe, speaking in Shona (the major language in Zimbabwe) at Mhondoro, in
his Zezuru clan heartland, said: 'Tsvangirai thought I would then say,
'There you are, take over the presidency,' and that I would step aside.

'That's what Tsvangirai was dreaming. But he hadn't been taught a lesson --
and he is still to be taught a lesson.'

Mugabe, who once boasted that he had degrees in violence, added: 'Does he
know where we come from? If he comes that way we will blow him away like a
fly.'

Mugabe's intemperate language matches his use of his youth militia, known as
the Green Bombers, as extra-judicial hit men to intimidate and crush any who
dare to oppose or criticise the president and his ruling Zanu-PF elite, who
returned to power in heavily rigged elections just over a year ago.

Mugabe is deploying the Green Bombers much as Adolf Hitler used the
brownshirts in the early years of Nazi rule to eliminate opponents and
establish rule by terror.

Last week thousands of Green Bombers were bussed by police and soldiers into
central Harare to occupy the capital's main square, where opposition leaders
had called on supporters to gather prior to a planned mass march on State
House. The Green Bombers -- so-called because of the olive-green uniforms
they receive in their rural training camps -- wore white T-shirts emblazoned
with the slogan 'No To Mass Action'. Marchers were unable to assemble as the
Green Bombers, police and army unleashed widespread violence on suspected
Mugabe critics.

Human rights groups and Western diplomats have accused Mugabe of
deliberately training more than 10,000 National Youth Service recruits as
violent thugs to be unleashed on opponents of his regime. Mugabe maintains
that the youths, mostly teenagers with little education from poor
backgrounds, have been recruited and trained for desperately needed
community service projects.

Not so, said former Youth Service member Makhosi Ngusanya, one of a growing
band of Green Bombers who have fled to Hillbrow, a former white inner suburb
of Johannesburg that is now home to large numbers of immigrants, destitute
South Africans, prostitutes, drug dealers and criminal syndicates.

'They told us that if we became good Green Bombers they would make us
soldiers and give us land,' said 19-year-old Ngusanya. 'But they didn't give
us anything. And all they taught us was to kill. It got too bad. There was
too much beating -- old people, young people, our own aunts and uncles. I
had to run away.'

Themba Ndlovu, 22, said he had been forced to take part in attacks on white
farmers and to set their homesteads ablaze. He had been promised money and
land but received nothing. 'We used crowbars and firearms,' he said. 'I have
 not killed, but I have raped. I raped a 12-year-old girl. We have attacked
people from the MDC party -- many people. I need to change my life. That is
why I ran away from Zimbabwe.'

The Green Bombers are trained in six-week sessions at many camps established
by the government. 'They are taught to appreciate the country's history,'
according to Mugabe's minister of youth development, Elliott Manyika. 'If
people are beaten it might be the work of some people who want to tarnish
the image of the programme of national service.'

Yes, it is true she was taught history, said a 21-year-old woman and former
Green Bomber who gave her name as Sithulisiwe when she testified recently at
a service led by Archbishop Pius Ncube at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city.

'They taught us the history of our country, starting from colonial slavery,
and they told us we should hate whites,' said Sithulisiwe, who was abducted
18 months ago and taken to a Green Bomber camp where she was repeatedly
gang-raped before being sent away after she was made pregnant and
HIV-positive. She is now the mother of a seven-month-old girl, Nokthula,
which means 'peace' in Ndebele, but does not know which of her assailants is
the father.

'I can't even count how many times I was raped by different men,' she said.
'If we complained to the camp commander we were beaten and they would call
us sell-outs to the MDC.'

Young teachers are also 're- educated' in the Green Bomber camps. 'The
ruling party wants a situation where everything is militarised and
Zanu-ised,' said Takavafiria Zhou, president of the Progressive Teachers
Union for Manicaland, in southeastern Zimbabwe, from where many teachers
have been abducted.

'They want us to sleep Zanu, breathe Zanu, live on Zanu food and tell our
children there is nothing on earth apart from Zanu.' Zhou said that course
instruction includes regular denigration of Tsvangirai and Tony Blair -- who
allegedly wants to recolonise Zimbabwe -- and songs praising Mugabe, Fidel
Castro and Muammar Gaddafi, who has been given extensive Zimbabwean farmland
in exchange for oil.

The young teachers, said Zhou, received a certificate of national service on
graduation and a copy of a little book praising Mugabe's achievements.
Newspaper adverts for teachers' jobs now state: 'Preference will be given to
national service graduates.'

The question now being universally asked after the MDC's unsuccessful 'final
push' last week to topple Zimbabwe's ruthless, paranoid and ageing autocrat
is: How long can this all go on?

Other than to say that Hitler himself finally created the conditions for his
own downfall, and that Mugabe is emulating the FŸhrer, nobody knows. While
Mugabe won last week's battle, he is now so widely discredited beyond his
own narrow circle that he will inevitably lose the war. The fear is that he
will leave a wasteland that will take decades to restore to health.

Zimbabwe has the fastest-shrinking economy in the world due to crazed,
suicidal and dysfunctional policies now being called 'Mugabenomics'.

The latest evidence came 10 days ago when the country ran out of bank notes.
The government reacted by ordering the mass printing of new money that, in
turn, fuelled inflation already running officially at 270% but thought in
reality to be nearer 500%.

The paradox is that as the mass of Zimbabweans grows poorer and hungrier,
Mugabe, his wife Grace, known scathingly as 'The First Shopper', top
politicians, police officers, army and air force officers and the country's
co-opted judges grow rich on the loot of a discredited government that this
weekend was tossed out of the International Monetary Fund for failure to
repay its massive foreign debts. Foreign aid, investment and loans have
dried up and there are acute shortages of food, fuel, foreign currency and
medicines.

Nevertheless, history may judge last week as a 'tilting point' in the
Zimbabwe saga. The undeniable reality is that the world, observing last
week's bitter events, knows that Mugabe is now able to survive only by brute
force. As the Harare-based weekly Independent commented : 'Mugabe and his
minions are increasingly living in a foreign country, one over which they
have no authority.'

08 June 2003

Four corners

Foreign Editor David Pratt introduces the week's world news

Rumours of Robert Mugabe's impending political demise are nothing new. There
are even some who suggest that the Zimbabwean leader is looking for a way
out. Somehow though, Mugabe continues to outlive the rumour-mongers, and if
indeed he is looking to step aside or politically compromise, there were
precious few signs of it on the streets of Harare last week.
'Bad economy is bad politics' Malawi's President, Bakili Muluzi, is said to
have told Mugabe last Monday. A bit sweet, some might say, coming from a man
who allegedly sold most of his country's emergency grain reserves to pay off
IMF debts -- most of the cash remains unaccounted for -- and changed his
country's constitution to allow him another potential term in office.
Perhaps in Zimbabwe's case it might be more accurate to say 'bad politics,
bad economy.'

Once the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe is now in dire economic straits,
and as with Newton's third law of motion, so it is with Mugabe's rule. For
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In a week that saw the
arrest of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Fred Bridgland reports on the
the latest brutal crackdown.

In Aqaba, Jordan, earlier last week it all looked so chummy. George W Bush,
Ariel Sharon, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in the sunshine
formally launching their 'road map' to peace. But by calling off their
ceasefire talks, the Islamic resistance movement Hamas threw up the first of
many roadblocks to the fledgling peace process.

Robert Tait goes from Tulkarm's Palestinian refugee camp to Jerusalem's Zion
Square, to meet those reluctant to compromise in the search for peace.

It's like a tale from Caligula's time, orgies, depravity, murder, and the
public and private faces of a former mayor. The good people of Toulouse
continue to reel from the allegations associated with this quaint corner of
France. Rob Parson's investigates a truly 'colossal scandal.'

A scandal of a different sort has rattled Italian gastronomes, as one of
their beloved food critics is put through the meat grinder by fast-food
giant McDonald's. Hilary Clarke talks to Edoardo Raspelli about his battle.

08 June 2003