Who are the winners and losers in the new Zimbabwe?
The biggest winners in the “new”, power-sharing Zimbabwe are the ruling party cronies who enriched themselves over the past 10 years and are now being allowed to rehabilitate themselves as the country emerges awkwardly from international disgrace and isolation. The land-grabbers, militia bosses and plunderers of the central bank, including the governor Gideon Gono, are all still under the protection of the government and now free to spend their profits at home instead of crossing to South Africa to shop. Zimbabwe’s writers, musicians and poets, who are legion, are also capitalising on the new, freer atmosphere in the country; civil servants are earning a pittance but that is still more than they were one year ago. The losers remain the rural poor left adrift by the politically-motivated destruction of the agricultural sector and the urban unemployed who make up the vast majority of the people. Has the political violence stopped? No. Last Sunday, soldiers from the bodyguard of army chie
