And as he punches the air Mugabe rails against an antique and increasingly irrelevant colonialism, like an adolescent who refuses to grow up and take responsibility for his own mistakes. What is happening in Zimbabwe today is essentially the work of one old man who would sacrifice the peace of an entire nation for a few more years of power. He has choreographed this crisis. With his blessing these gangs of squatters have flouted the courts and ignored the timorous police. Even if the immediate crisis is damped down, the fundamental fabric of the country has already been sorely damaged.
Many white farmers are in hock to the banks.
If they default, the financial sector will suffer. The West preaches to Africa the necessity of good governance and transparency. But in its response to the blatant political thuggery which has caused this economic mayhem, the West's residual colonial guilt, like a phantom limb, keeps twitching. This is hardly the first time Mugabe has shown signs of the autocrat within. But we have to go back further to the first election faced by the newly emerging Zimbabwe in 1980 to find the last time that Mugabe faced any real opposition.