Is this a deal breaker?

An atrocity of 25 years ago may still wreck the talks

One of Mugabe's first and most appalling crimes against the people of Zimbabwe, when some 25,000 people lost their lives in the early eighties, may now prove to be the stumbling block to success at the current talks in Pretoria.

The Gukurahundi - the massacre of the people of Matabeleland, which has never received the recognition or condemnation from the West that it deserves - has led the opposition MDC negotiators to demand that any transitional government must set up a Truth and Justice Commission to investigate this and other Zanu-PF atrocities.

Mugabe's men at the talks, Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa and Labour minister Nicholas Goche, are adamant that the mass persecution of the Ndebele people be left in the past.

But MDC Morgan Tsvangirai's negotiators, party chairman Lovemore Moyo and secretary-general Tendai Biti have both told mediator Thabo Mbeki that the people responsible should be brought to book.

Thousands of coins in the fountain

And suddenly they're worth money again

Being a blind beggar in a city suffering financial and social meltdown is hardly conducive to happiness, but Arnold Dzingai, who spends his sightless days on the streets of Harare, is a happy man today. Suddenly, out of the darkness, he has real money.

All around him there's an excited buzz in the air. At the end of the street stands one of our public fountains. Respectable citizens can be seen plunging head-first into the murky water and scavenging around beneath the surface.