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Bitter fruits of our folly

The failed state of Zimbabwe on our borders is now threatening the welfare of South Africans as cholera follows refugees across the border.

The failed state of Zimbabwe on our borders is now threatening the welfare of South Africans as cholera follows refugees across the border.

Pundits have for years been predicting that something like this would happen as former president Thabo Mbeki blustered on with his so-called quiet diplomacy.

The charade was no more than cover for his old buddy Robert Mugabe to steal two elections and drag his sorry nation into further squalor.

After years of the highest inflation in the world and an economy in freefall, the institutions of state have finally foundered as the geriatric dictator hangs on to power with no regard for his subjects.

Hospitals, schools and all government services exist in name only. Shops' shelves are bare and the starving rural poor in what was Africa's breadbasket now scramble through the bush to eke out a sub-human existence.

South Africa must accommodate a tide of desperate refugees streaming across our border, cholera now threatens us too, and the other calamities spawned by a failed course will wash over us next.

Things will only get worse until SADC negotiators and their South African counterparts put pressure on Mugabe to settle with the MDC, which won the last election but is being kept out of power by the bums who stole the election under our protection.

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