Zimbabwe: MDC-Zanu-PF talks fail
Updated on 20 January 2009
A deep gloom has fallen over Zimbabwe as we hear the news that renewed power sharing talks between the MDC and Zanu-PF have ended in failure, says our guest writer Helen.
It only took 12 hours for the MDC leader to insist that his party be allowed to really share the power of governance and for Mr Mugabe to refuse. Although the outcome hasn't come as a surprise, the exhaustion and despair of ordinary people is palpable.
It has been 10 months since Zimbabweans voted the MDC into power but still Zanu-PF is at the helm and the will of the people continues to be ignored.
Everyone had called this "the last chance" to salvage the deadlocked power sharing agreement but for millions of hungry, sick and unemployed Zimbabweans the last chance has already come and gone.
International organizations already use the words "disaster" and "catastrophe" to describe the situation here and it is getting worse by the day.
Since the power sharing agreement was signed in September 2008 a deadly cholera epidemic has swept over the country.
The latest figures from the World Health Organization reveal that there are 40,448 recorded cholera cases in the country and 2,106 people have died from the disease.
Despite various political pronouncements it is clearly an epidemic that is far from being under control, with 1,642 new cases being recorded in just one day last week.
It has been 10 months since Zimbabweans voted the MDC into power but still Zanu-PF is at the helm and the will of the people continues to be ignored.
Not many people talk about the cholera because it has become a very sensitive political issue but it is just one of the health disasters we face every day.
Government hospitals are not functional, there are no drugs, equipment, food or linen and the nurses and doctors who haven't left the country are on strike. Medical personnel say they won't go back to work until they get their salaries in US dollars.
A recent report showed that a government doctor in Harare was earning the equivalent of just 32 US cents a month - easily treated illnesses have become killers and if you are poor and get sick the outlook is dire.
Life expectancy in the country fell from 62 years in 1990 to just 36 in 2006. It is not known how low it is in 2009. A walk around any cemetery reveals the tragedy of our collapsed country with row upon row of newly covered graves of people in their early twenties.
Grim numbers have also just been released by World Vision which says that 5.5 million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, half of the country's total population.
In urban areas there is still no sign of international food aid and poor and unemployed people are struggling to find one meal a day.
This includes Zimbabwe's government teachers one of whom showed me her December pay slip. It was for $400bn - enough to buy four loaves of bread before Christmas but now not even enough to buy one slice.
Failed power sharing talks have come too late for multiple thousands of our teachers who have had no choice but to leave the country in order to survive.
If and when government run schools open at the end of January (two weeks later than planned) it is estimated (by an MDC MP) that only 20 per cent of the required 105,000 teachers will still be offering their services to Zimbabwe's 2.8 million school children.
At the end of the collapsed power sharing talks MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai said that this was the darkest day for his party. It is an even darker day for the country and for ordinary people who ask only that their wishes as reflected in the March 2008 elections, be respected.
