What the author fails to mention is that the main reason that the government is a shambles is not just the brutality of the regime but its wanton kleptocrasy.

It has without shame plundered every deposit ever made into the reserve bank (RB) which has been treated as a bottomless cookie jar by the glutenous leaders, and even the $50m aid grant by the South African government has "disappeared".

The reason that the regime was forced into a power sharing agreement was that they had found that the cookie jar was now empty, and that no one was prepared to lend, donate or allow their finances anywhere near the clutches of the reserve bank.

The reason that no further aid is forthcoming is for the reason that the western leaders see that in the power sharing arrangement, that the old regime still has control over the RB, the army, the police, the communications, and any other real power, and any aid would simply find its way into the pockets of the same old kleptocrats.

Any aid that has been given over the last few years has been funnelled through NGOs with external banking arrangements.

So in short, the West is keen to engage any Zim gov except the one currently in power.

Terrible to say it, but Zimbabwe is only an especially egregious present example of an almost universal fecklessness in African culture, as judged from a Western viewpoint. This is not racist, it's just an observation on the historical record.

Admittedly, Botswana stands out as better. Who else, in this continent of 53 countries?

When you look at the roll-call of tinpot brutal, unimaginably corrupt dictators that Africa has thrown up in the decades since decolonization, is it surprising that Western governments, and also very many ordinary western citizens otherwise open to compassion, have hardened their hearts around anything to do with Africa?

I feel compassion for the ordinary people of Zimbabwe, but I for one wouldn't be contributing a brass razoo to the country while Mugabe is still on the loose, and just as much so, the whole class of deplorable thugs that have kept him in power and now are scared witless of retribution if and when he goes.

Eight days since the last post (mine), and still only two posts altogether.

That seems to vindicate my view that despite all the bleeding heart appeals for charity for Africa, Australians have just turned off.