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US
envoy predicts Mugabe's fall near
NewZimbabwe.com
June 19, 2007
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/powell46.16561.html
ZIMBABWE'S economic crisis characterised by world-record inflation,
should spell the downfall of President Robert Mugabe's government,
the outgoing US ambassador to Harare said on Monday.
"We are closer to
seeing change in Zimbabwe today from within than at any time since
independence," Christopher Dell told journalists in Zimbabwe's
second city of Bulawayo.
"The first cycle
of post-independent history is coming to an end... the phase defined
by the liberation struggle, anti-colonialism and sadly by ethnic
hatred and racism... as the economy collapses around us."
Dell, in the country's
second city before his departure to Afghanistan, has been an outspoken
critic of Mugabe who has ruled the former British colony since independence
in 1980.
The ambassador said calculations
by independent economists project that by the end of the year, Zimbabwe's
inflation would hit 1.5m% if the central bank continued printing
money.
He said it was impossible
for Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party to remain in power under the current
"economic madness".
Dell said the country
would need external help to get back on track after the change attained
saying the country does not have sufficient capacity to kick-start
the moribund economy.
Dell deplored the prevailing
repression, saying it deprived Zimbabweans of the right to express
themselves.
"The real crisis
in Zimbabwe today has been generated by the fact that a handful
of people have arrogated unto themselves the right to speak on behalf
of everybody and they have excluded anybody who doesn't think, talk
or act like them from the discussion about their own future,"
he said.
"That, at the most
profound level is the core of the crisis in Zimbabwe today. But,
I think this period is coming to an end."
Despite the crisis gripping
the country, Dell was cautiously optimistic that regional mediation
efforts - led by South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki - would help
resolve the crisis.
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