Raila to address Zimbabwe crisis in cabinet.

E-MAIL THIS

PRINT THIS

MOST POPULAR

PDF VERSION

TXT version

Breaking away from Kenya’s past culture of ‘no see, no hear attitude’ for the first time after many years of political absence on international affairs, the newly crowned Prime Minister has vowed to address Zimbabwe crisis in the grand coalition cabinet meeting. Prime Minister Raila Odinga also pledged to push the matter into African Union’s priority agenda.
Zimbabwe’s MDC delegation is in Kenya in a bid to internationalize the wrongs of President Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Speaking to the Standard Newspaper after a meeting with Raila, MDC Secretary General, Mr Tendai Biti, said they came to seek Kenya’s intervention over their electoral crisis because Kenya had gone through a similar conflict.

But lets look at the parales between Zimbabwe and Kenya.
While Kenya gained its independence in 1963, Zimbabwe which like our country also fought a bitter independence war, joined independent African nations in 1980 but also with a more sound and better structured economy.

This mineral and fresh water rich country though landlocked, enjoyed very good governance and the once bread basket of Africa, had its dollar exchange rate at par with the United States. Where did things go wrong then? A Zimbabwean analyst says “Comrade Robert Mugabe simply outlived his historical purpose”.

Trouble started in 2000 when Mugabe lost the referrandum. In 2005, Kibaki lost a refeandum too and he events that took place after wards would change Kenya’s history. Well, after losing the referendum, unlike Kibaki who fired his entire cabinet including Prime Minister Raila, Mugabe took his forces into Congo DRC to support the murdered president Laurent Kabila against Uganda and Rwanda.

The cost of war for Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was a million dollars a day. Today, inflation in Zimbabe has surpassed 160,000%, the highest in the world. An absolute record breaker.
During 28th independence anniversary, even without mentioning presidential election results that his regime is reluctant to release even after 3 weeks, Mugabe hit out at Britain as the main cause of his nation’s problems.

Kenya can help Zimbabwe because somehow there a common understanding transcending party lines, the 27th December elections were flawed. Something terribly went wrong there. But imagine if  Kibaki would have totally refused to come to the Kofi Annan negotiating table?
Well, Robert Mugabe will not negotiate with Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC?