AFRICA

Well, there’s renewed fighting in Somalia. Pray for them. This has been going on awhile.

In Zimbabwe, they signed that peace deal but the deal is vague and the conditions and specific responsibilities are not clear. Mugabe is the executive president who runs a usual cabinet and creates policy while Tsvangiari is the prime minister who runs a parallel cabinet of ministers that implement policies and legislation.
The JOC (Joint Operations Command I told you about) which includes Mugabe’s top security guys is replaced by a National Security Council on which Tsvangirai has a seat. There is also a Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee which draws from all parties which should help with disputes.

ZANU-PF will get 15 cabinet ministries (the army is one Mugabe will keep) while Tsvangirai and the main MDC will get 13 (probably finance, home, foreign affairs, social service ministries) and Mutumbara and his MDC-spinoff will get 3 for a total of 31 seats. Mugabe must appoint ministers, but he must do it in consultation with Tsvangirai.

But the holes in the deal are as follows:

How are disputes resolved?
What happens to those who committed political violence? Do they get amnesty?
What happens to the victims of political violence and those still in jail?
How do we intend to stop the ZANU-PF violence in the countryside that is still said to continue?
Who gets the Central Intelligence Organization?

The documents say the ousting of farms and land is irreversible and people should appeal to Britain for compensation (the white people were ousted). But property rights and security of the tenure of property should be irrespective of race according to the document. It also abolishes multiple farm ownership (Mugabe has many).

The big question is if the deal will work for the betterment of the country. It’s definitely a psychological shift, but if policies don’t change the 10 million people still left in the country will suffer more and more with inflation being rated at 11million% and some say as high as 40million%. 3 million people have already left the country.