Foreign Policy Blogs

Zim: We Don't Know What We Know

On any given day it is difficult to discern the status of negotiations in Zimbabwe. They might be resuming, if they ever ended, if they haven't been done for a while. Robert Mugabe is grabbing as much power in the form of ministries as he possibly can (causing Morgan Tsvangirai to considering pulling out of whatever agreements may or may not exist) or else Mugabe is backing down on claiming those ministries. (Either way, Mugabe is the least trustworthy participant in the process. This much, at least, we know.) Thabo Mbeki is on the outs as negotiator because of his loss of power in South Africa unless he is in because of the tability he brings to the process. And then there is the question of what parliament might do given that Mugabe's ZANU-PF no longer enjoys its majority in that body.

We do not know any more than we did a month ago, when we knew no more than we knew the month before that. I would not recommend making book on significant change having taken place a month from now.

 

Author

Derek Catsam

Derek Catsam is a Professor of history and Kathlyn Cosper Dunagan Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He is also Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s and on the 1981 South African Springbok rugby team's tour to the US. He is the author of three books, dozens of scholarly articles and reviews, and has published widely on current affairs in African, American, and European publications. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

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