Zimbabwe could face 'complete anarchy' within a year

Harare (Zimbabwe), May 26 (ANI): Zimbabwe could collapse into "complete anarchy" in a year if foreign aid does not bolster it's failing economy, a former judge has told Sky News Online.

The nation is battling to pay nurses, teachers, police and soldiers, despite adopting the US dollar as its first currency to tame hyperinflation with its own. Starvation and a cholera outbreak have also been wreaking havoc in the southern African state.

Foreign powers are prepared to boost Zimbabwe with a multi-billion pound rescue package - but only if Mugabe abides by a power-sharing deal.

George Smith, a former High Court judge who served under both Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and President Robert Mugabe's regimes, said "It's essential the outside world comes in with aid as soon as possible, even if it comes in bits and pieces and makes each step conditional."

The judge, who played a key role in the Lancaster House negotiations in 1980 that brought about Zimbabwe's independence, admitted "the big problem" with the unity government was Zanu PF's reluctance to fulfill the power-sharing deal's promises.

Referring to reports of police refusing to protect farmers from groups seizing their land, he said: "The failure to implement what was agreed and the arrests of political activists and journalists make a lot of people unsure the inclusive government is working as one. The problem is not the president, but there are people in the parties or in the police who are doing their own thing."

He insisted holding back aid threatened "to destroy" the unity government, with internal political party tensions mounting, as the economy declines.

"Africa should be left to police itself. If aid does not come in, the whole thing will collapse and people are going to suffer," he said. (ANI)