A Zimbabwe's inflation rate, which long ago reached the status of being the worst in the world, doubles and trebles, the country's humanitarian crisis worsens. Thabo Mbeki continues to try to facilitate dialogue between Robert Mugabe's thugocracy and the opposition, most notably the Movement for Democratic Change, as per his mandate from SADC, but the process is slow when it progresses at all. South Africa has rejected taking a hardline stance against Zimbabwe, arguing that doing so would likely prove counterproductive. In a speech before Parliament on Tuesday South Africa's Foreign Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, argued, “You must not push the country over the brink, you must pull it back from the brink. That is our approach.”
It must be incredibly frustrating to be a part of South Africa's foreign affairs apparatus and to be dealing with the Zimbabwe fiasco. Opposing a hardline stance might simply qualify as making a virtue out of necessity, as even Mbeki's harshest critics have been better at asserting his Zimbabwe policy's failings without providing a concrete prescription for how to remedy the country's approach to Mugabe's regime.
