It was with a surprise and relief when the Zambian foreign minister (Mundia Sikatana) broke this heinous silence by at least admitting that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. The regional leadership has for long hidden behind the veil of "quiet diplomacy", which in fact meant the diplomacy of silence and indifference to the suffering of the Zimbabwean masses. The pain of it all is for the regional leaders to mislead the whole world that they are doing something about the Zimbabwean crisis. Yet they knew perfectly well that nothing was happening on the ground.
The repressive machinations of the Mugabe junta of the past few days have been all there for all to see. In earnest, the autocratic nature of the Harare regime first became evident during the Gukuruhundi campaign in the 1980s, in which thousands of Ndebeles were massacred. The advent of the constitutional reform campaigns in 2000 was met with total disregard for law and order by the regime.
