Mugabe wasn't horrible, and that's what's sad about all of this -- the land reform was a populist grab that was initiated when he started losing his grasp on the country. He's shown over and again that he's willing to put his position above the interests of the country in the last few years, and that's what'll make him go down in history as a despot rather than a hero.
I've got quite a few friends in Zim and spent a few weeks there a bit back. All of the friends that I visited that are under 35 have now left, mostly to South Africa and a few to Botswana. More than a third of Zimbabwe's population has left the country in the last few years. That's far above par for brain-drain.
The coverage in the west is biased, but the fact that people were voting for the MDC, under fear of persecution, which nobody I talked to a year and a half ago when I was there even took seriously, says a lot.
Some of the inflation has been due to external influences, but it's also true that the Zanu-PF leadership let the countries agriculture and industry fall apart. That there's no food now in Zim is nutty.
I've got quite a few friends in Zim and spent a few weeks there a bit back. All of the friends that I visited that are under 35 have now left, mostly to South Africa and a few to Botswana. More than a third of Zimbabwe's population has left the country in the last few years. That's far above par for brain-drain.
The coverage in the west is biased, but the fact that people were voting for the MDC, under fear of persecution, which nobody I talked to a year and a half ago when I was there even took seriously, says a lot.
Some of the inflation has been due to external influences, but it's also true that the Zanu-PF leadership let the countries agriculture and industry fall apart. That there's no food now in Zim is nutty.