Perhaps it is easier to sit back and look at the various standards that Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF set for us and anyone else that cares to take a look in.

I was giving it some thought earlier and realised that Mugabe and his police force work at cross-purposes to one another.

Not only did the police prosecute a woman for calling Mugabe a “Hitler” when he calls himself “Hitler - tenfold” (perhaps the insult against Mugabe is that the woman only called him “Hitler” once, not ten times!), but recently a member of ZANU PF was arrested for stealing a portrait of Mugabe!

Why anyone would want to steal such an article, I don’t know - but the person concerned was swiftly arrested and incarcerated. We have not had any further mention of this individual and perhaps The Herald has decided that we don’t need to know, or, more realistically, he awaits prosecution from within a remand cell somewhere.

What could be the value of such a portrait? Not much, unless you attach the political clout that it comes with...

In the meantime, Mugabe has decided that Gono, his unilaterally appointed governor of the broke Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, is not a thief, even though he has helped himself from accounts held by the bank - allegedly to prop up the Mugabe administration and his party.

The government of Zimbabwe is broke, as is Mugabe’s ZANU PF party.

No doubt he will be looking elsewhere for money to rule/ruin Zimbabwe. A junket into the East is for party monies - and it will be interesting to see just how much is gleaned and how much actually makes its way into party coffers.

The local Zimbabwean press remains silent on the issue.

At the risk of repeating myself, surely the recent diamond find, if the money from legitimate sales is handled correctly, should be enough to not only rebuild Zimbabwe and to re-ignite the economy.

But Gono - that erstwhile loyalist lapdog of Mugabe’s - claims that the country is losing a specific amount of carats each week and that the country remains destitute.

How is it that he can be so specific about the loss? Is it not because he has personally overseen the illegal sale of the diamonds for Mugabe and his hierarchy and therefore is au fait with the numbers?

What say Gono about the diamonds which were held under lock and key at the bank that have mysteriously disappeared?

If Gono is not a thief, then surely someone else high up in his bank, Mugabe’s party and with strong attachments to government is…
But will we ever know the truth?

Mugabe blocks probes into the diamond fields, an audit into the bank’s financial dealings in the past ten years - but pleads poverty at every outing, to all and everyone that will listen.

Poverty is what happens when the unconstitutional leader of a country rapes the resources of that country, gleans the riches that such action brings, and holds two fingers up at not just the people of that country, but to the whole world.

And the international community do nothing to help the beleaguered people of Zimbabwe, preferring to ignore the travesties of justice that prevail in that country.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man