I flew over Harare recently while on a trip from Egypt to South Africa. Even at 9000 m I could see the effects of President "Saviour of Africa" Mugabe's efforts to "clean up" his country. You cannot hide anything away from satellites but I realised that you cannot hide anything, period. It was obvious that there were areas outside Harare that seemed to contain roads but no housing. I looked down in wonder as I identified these roads then wondered where the houses were.
It struck me then that this must be the area that Mugabe had demolished in his clean up campaign to rid Harare of shacks and squatters and those who shame Zimbabwe by their "disgraceful habits."
I'm not going to blog on and on about the "polecat" of Africa (I've been doing it for years---in fact Comrade Robert would come after me if his secret police could afford a plane ticket on one of his donated Chinese planes, or had the bullets to finish my nagging-- I'm going to send him a little message instead):
'The breadbasket has gone, Comrade, and you can only provide three things for your beloved people: Starvation, homelessness and ruthlessness. Cry, the beloved country.'(with acknowledgement to Alan Paton).