Most western media outfits are prohibited from operating in Zimbabwe, so it's hard to get firm details about what's going on in President Robert Mugabe's thugdom. We know that in recent years Mugabe has riled up military veterans to drive away the owners of white-owned farms and set up squatter's settlements on the abandoned estates. As a result, Zimbabwe's largest industry has practically ceased functioning, and along with the departure of the white landowners went the agricultural jobs that sustained many of the country's rural citizens. Zimbabwe, once known as the breadbasket of Africa, is now destitute, reliant on food aid from the international community, and a pariah state ostracized by the Commonwealth.
Mugabe has created a crisis in Zimbabwe by rigging elections, violently suppressing dissent, and jailing opposition figures and members of the press, all in an effort to maintain complete political and military control of the government over which he's presided ever since he led the insurgency that ended white-rule in Rhodesia and resulted in the new nation of Zimbabwe. But throughout the repression of recent years, Mugabe has blamed all of Zimbabwians' hardships on consipracies he claims eminate from the United States and the United Kingdom.
There's been little evidence that the U.S. had much interest in Zimbabwe since the end of the cold war and the transistion to black rule in South Africa. But that may be changing. This morning the BBC is reporting that
A US-registered cargo plane with 64 suspected mercenaries on board has been impounded in Harare, Zimbabwe's Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi has said.
He said the Boeing 727-100 was held on Sunday after its owners "made a false declaration of its cargo and crew".
He said the plane was carrying dozens of suspected mercenaries of differing nationalities and "military material".
Mr Mohadi said an inquiry was under way to establish the men's identities and their "ultimate mission".
It's quite possible the mercenaries on board have no direct ties to the governments of either the U.S. or the U.K. It's actually more likely that they were hired by displaced white farmers to go into Zimbabwe and foment rebellion among military factions or seize back swaths of land abandoned by the white farmers who feared for their safety. With the little information currently available, it's impossible to do anything other than speculate.
According to Reuters, the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe "could not be reached for comment."