The tragedy of Zimbabwe - continued

It's impossible to imagine how much worse Zimbabwe's situation can become - this week's news of the de facto nationalisation of mining companies will be another blow to the already wrecked economy (and hardly a triumph for "quiet diplomacy" which Gordon Brown will doubtless claim he is continuing to pursue at the current Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Uganda).

The economic chaos into which Zimbabwe has descended was exactly what was foreseen by Ian Smith, who died this week. He opposed majority rule in what was then Rhodesia, afraid of the political and economic chaos in many of the newly independent African countries, though his stance was widely derided at the time as being out of touch with the climate of decolonisation prevailing in the 1960s.

History never sees the counter-factual case, so we will never know if he was right or wrong, or if his determination to prevent majority rule was precisely what led to the rise of Robert Mugabe.

But his death removes another of the demons (Matabele, MDC-supporting city dwellers in Harare etc) which Robert Mugabe has created to justify his cruel dictatorship