A road map for Zimbabwe's future - dream or nightmare? Africa Today Seminar

Wilfred Mbanga is a renowned journalist and newspaper executive from Zimbabwe. He worked as foreign correspondent for the Argus Africa News Service (based in Johannesburg), as editor-in-chief of the Zimbabwe News Agency, as chief executive of the Community Newspapers Group and was co-founder and managing director (1997-1999) of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, the publisher of The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s first and only independent daily. He is presently Guest of the Tilburg City of Refugee Programme (‘vrijplaats’). Because of repeated harassment and continuous surveillance he was unable to continue working as a professional journalist in Zimbabwe. Mbanga is the author of a weekly column in the Brabants Dagblad (see www.zimbabwewatch.org).

Wilfred Mbanga examines the possibility of a road map to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis - but with the ruling Zanu (PF) and the opposition MDC holding diametrically divergent views, this seems an impossible dream. All agree that the current status quo is untenable but Zanu (PF) is intent on obliterating any opposition through a culture of violence and intimidation coupled with massive electoral fraud, while the MDC is insisting that fresh elections under a new or revised constitution are placed in the hands of neutral institutions created for this purpose. Whoever wins such elections - the first "free and fair elections" for a long time - will form a new government and run the country. With the rest of the world preoccupied with the war on terror and South African president Thabo Mbeki increasingly regarded as a dishonest and partisan broker, the dream is becoming a nightmare.