Poor Zimbabwe

"Zimbabwe MDC 'in unity boycott'

Zimbabwe's prime minister has said his party will disengage from the unity government until outstanding issues of a power-sharing deal are dealt with.

Morgan Tsvangirai said the MDC was not "pulling out officially", but would not continue working with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

He said the move was prompted by the detention this week of senior MDC aide Roy Bennett on terrorism charges.

It showed Zanu-PF to be a "unreliable" partner, AFP quoted him as saying."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8310629.stm

Bitter-sweet news. From the beginning, the 'Power Sharing' deal seemed to have a distinct air of master/slave about it. ZANU PF moved very little towards an actual sharing arrangement, and seemed to think it ought to get vast rewards for the few sops it did provide. Having completely destroyed the countries economy, they now want foreigners to pick up the tab for 'fixing' it. The same foreigners they have serially accused of everything from modern-day slavery to trying to assassinate Mugabe.

Mr Tsvangirai has been tarnished by association with this arrangement, although not much. Observers can tell that his intentions were good, even if his judgement was not. But it is a very poor step for Zimbabwe as a whole. The only positive thing of note to have occured since 1999, when the whole debacle kicked off, is now history.

Poor, poor Zimbabwe.