Zimbabwe Update

Both the European Union and the United States have expanded sanctions against Zimbabwe

As to the negotiations that have been going on for a few days, we have the ZANU-PF saying that the results of the runoff are 'Non-Negotiable', but that could be put down to normal gamesmanship in any negotiation.

As to what will happen in the negotiations, the The Grauniad^* and the Times of London have two diametrically opposed views of what is happening next, with the Guardian suggesting that the talks are a ploy, and that Mugabe is using them for time to prepare for even more extreme violence against the opposition, and the Times of London suggesting that South Africa is insisting that Robert Mugabe and his allies to surrender real power in Zimbabwe.

I think that the Times is wrong for a number of reasons. First, as the Guardian notes, this sort of negotiation has happened before, in the late 1980s with Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU party, with no real power devolving to ZAPU, and second because it would be completely out of character for Thabo Mbeki to insist that Robert Mugabe do anything.

I expect it to get much worse before it gets better.

^*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It's nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, "The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad."