Robert Mugabe has Arrested Cholera.

In a speech on Thursday Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe announced that he had arrested the countries cholera outbreak so there is no need for the Zimbabwean people or it's neighbours to worry about it anymore and there is certainly no reason for him to be removed from power. Presumably this means that as we speak Cholera is currently being beaten up at a police station just outside Harare.

However back in reality the consensus amongst aid agencies working in the country is that Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak is far from under control with another 200 reported deaths so far this week. The South African government has declared a national health emergency in the Limpopo Province which borders Zimbabwe where at least 8 people have died of the disease and hundreds of Zimbabweans have fled in the hope of receiving medical treatment. The World Health Organisation working with Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and Child welfare have begun to respond to the crisis by setting up command and control structures throughout the affected regions. One of their first tasks will be to identify the strain(s) of Cholera involved and map how the outbreak spread. They have asked for US$6million to preform this task and get the outbreak under control.

Although this Cholera outbreak is a purely medical issue that must be addressed by properly trained and properly equipped medical professionals it highlights the deadlocked power sharing deal that has, in part, caused the collapse of Zimbabwe's health and sanitation infrastructure. The main sticking point between the two parties is the control of Zimbabwe's security services in the form of the intelligence service, the army and the police. Under the deal that is currently on the table Mugabe's Zanu would retain full control of the Intelligence Service and the army while control of the police is spilt 50:50 between Zanu and the MDC. This is of course completely unacceptable because in even the most civilised of democracies real power still comes down to which side has the most men at arms in the security services and Zimbabwe is far from a civilised democracy. I think that a much better and fairer deal would be for Zanu to retain control of the Intelligence Service while the MDC are given full control of the police. Control of the army would then be spilt between the two with the MDC member having the final say.