Fighting over nothing

The Cholera Bacillus

The name "Bulawayo" comes from the Ndebele word kwaBulawayo meaning 'At the place of He who Kills-With Affection' or 'place of slaughter'. Wikipedia

It is ironic. Can it get any worse? The country is a disaster and economically broken. Mugabe has stepped back but not necessarily out. Morgan Tsvangirai has been sworn in as prime minister of Zimbabwe. The new administration is a shared government between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change. The new MDC deputy agriculture minister Roy Bennett has been charged with treason reduced to plotting “insurgency, banditry and sabotage”. Any trace of the possibility of peace or hope is evaporating.

The trouble is people want power. The new troubles are the work of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), a five-man body comprising the chiefs of the army, air force, police, prisons and intelligence. They are a group with no accountability and an awful lot of power. They are chaired by Mugabe.

Cholera is worse than expected. Before Christmas 60,000 was considered the worst-case scenario. That number was passed last month. Now, things could exceed 100,000 especially as the World Health Organisation (WHO) note that the rainy season floods could only make things worse. Zimbabwe is broken from a country with the highest number of students in school and an infrastructure with clean water and sewage treatment to a rapid descent into I don't know what. In one sense total anarchy would be better as aid agencies and global groups might be able to give some help. Doesn't fighting over power here become meaningless?

Jesus cried for Jerusalem. Who will cry for Bulawayo, for Zimbabwe?