Of course no dictatorship is complete without a black market, but Mugabe has managed to create something particularly bizarre in Zimbabwe’s version. And then there is the black market, which has become such an integral part of life in Zimbabwe that it has been renamed the ”parallel market”. There were certain difficulties, Bizos pointed out, in sustaining conspiracy charges against a single accused. Tsvangirai’s defence counsel, George Bizos, a veteran of some of the great anti-apartheid trials in South Africa, must have enjoyed a good laugh this week when the state tried to amend the treason charges against his client after his two co-accused had been discharged. The result is almost inevitably counterproductive. Just as the Nats tied themselves in knots in the 1950s in their efforts to ”legitimately” disenfranchise the coloured voters by packing the senate, so Mugabe tries to deal with Morgan Tsvangirai through his cowed courts. He is almost like the old National party in South Africa in his eternally doomed efforts to claim legitimacy. Somehow it is all typical of the dictator who longs to be a legitimate ruler. Like many colonial towns, Harare does have a certain faded gentility, although it has abandoned all efforts to maintain appearances. In fact, despite the efforts at ballot box stuffing, nobody seems to like the little dictator very much in the second city, Bulawayo, either. The glares are understandable when one considers that since 1996 there have been five ballots of one sort or another in Harare - referendums, elections, by-elections and so on - and Mugabe hasn’t won one of them. Following is a truck of glaring soldiers. Two Mercedes follow, loaded with bodyguards, then El Presidente behind the tinted glass of a stretched limo. Then there is a banshee howl and a single motorcycle outrider hurtles by, elbows puffed out with self importance. One knows Bob is coming when, for no apparent reason, the traffic comes to a halt. ![]() The closest thing to a passenger train they have seen in Harare, for the last three months has been ”Bob Marley and the Wailers”, racing over the potholes. ![]() Zimbabwe, where the trains do not run on time - in fact they don’t run at all. The barman, taking the nod for a signal, rummaged in the refrigerator and triumphantly came up with a refill. Propping up the corner of the Keg & Sable, the Old Reliable held forth: ”The problem with Mugabe is that he is not a good dictator.” He drained his beer and pushed the glass across the bar with a satisfied nod.
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