Apologies

Yesterday I engaged in an April Fool’s prank with you, my friends. I’m sorry that I wrote a series of foolish and fake news stories about a Peace Tidal Wave. Clearly no such thing had happened, or could happen. How could the world open its collective eyes one special day and sort its problems out?

Imagine my surprise today when there seemed a genuine chance that the tyrant of Africa, Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, seemed about to accept the fact that he had lost their election and would go quietly. Dare we hope that this could actually happen? Just yesterday there was a touching moment on the news when a local man, suffering the 100,000% inflation caused by Mugabe, was still able to raise a laugh as he held up a handwritten sign that read, “Starving Billionaire”.

BM, Before Mugabe, Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, was one of the most prosperous countries in the whole of Africa. Its agriculture was so successful that it not only fed its own people, but also exported food to the rest of that continent. It has become disease ridden, people starve, the average life expectancy has nearly halved, AIDS related diseases are rampant, and the economy is in tatters.

At time of writing, despite positive noises about the election still coming out of that unfortunate country I remain pessimistic. The controlling clique around Mugabe are starting to make claims for a near dead heat between him and his main opposition, suggesting the need for a run off. This is clearly another tactic playing for time by the entirely discredited incumbent and his regime. Perhaps he will listen to outside pressure to relinquish his iron grip on the police and military who keep him in power. This needs to come from his South African peers, and the leaders of the major powers need to be putting maximum pressure on that leadership to make sure this happens. Maybe, just maybe, this is already happening behind the scenes, and later today will see this old despot take his leave.

Has there ever been a tin pot despot like the murderous, torturing and inefficient Mugabe who went without a whimper? It just doesn’t seem to happen, but I hope that I’m wrong. They are lovely people in Zimbabwe, and it’s a great country, what a pity they had such a terrible leader to ruin it all.