Are the Americans right that effectively the power sharing deal with Mugabe is dead?
LMB: I fear so. Power sharing isn’t dead but Mugabe has become an absolute impossible obstacle to achieving it. He’s so distrusted by all sides that I think the Americans are absolutely right, he’s going to have to step aside if Zimbabwe is to get a government. SM: But he’s not going to though is he? LMB: Well I think he will ultimately have to. I mean the final death throes of these kinds of situations seem terribly slow and grim and unnecessary. Lives I’m afraid get lost, particularly now with cholera. But yes, he’s going to have to go. SM: Would you support some sort of deal where he is perhaps given immunity for any prosecution in the future, something that perhaps the South African or senior southern African politicians could go and propose to him? LMB: Well in this era of the international criminal court it’s very hard for any particular country to offer that guarantee. It can as far as its own legal system goes but it’s hard to do it internationally. But I think, you know, if Pr
