"Urban renewal" has been another subterfuge. In 2005, Mugabe's Operation "Murambatsvina" (a Shona phrase meaning "drive out the trash") literally erased opposition neighborhoods. An estimated 700,000 people lost their homes and their livelihoods.
Now, Mugabe intends to change Zimbabwe's constitution. His term as president runs out in 2008, but he wants to remain in charge at least until 2010. Over the years, Mugabe's ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) Party has been a reliable prop for his regime. However, his move to keep the office until 2010 has ignited some opposition among younger party members.
Many Zimbabweans believe this nascent opposition could produce a political opportunity, if disgruntled ZANU-PF members can find common ground with the Tsvangirai's MDC. The MDC has international moral capital and international media credibility.
Mugabe, however, still controls the guns.
Forging a new internal Zimbabwean political consensus is absolutely vital, not only for Zimbabwe but for the rest of southern Africa. A civil war in Zimbabwe will have tribal overtones, with Mugabe's dominant Shona tribe likely providing the core of "pro-Mugabe" fighters. The Congo provides a bitter example: In sub-Saharan Africa, tribal wars all too easily spill over borders, which risks regional war. Wars in developing nations quickly erase decades of economic progress.
The United States and European Union are considering a package of economic sanctions that will affect Mugabe without punishing Zimbabwe's people, but that is a difficult formula that diplomats and bankers have yet to perfect.
The key actor is South Africa, the local regional power. South Africa needs to promote peaceful political change in Zimbabwe, publicly and forcefully. And that means easing, then releasing, Mugabe's grip on power.