According to ACN’s source, “photographs of his body were shown to Gordon Brown during the G8 summit in Japan, and he showed them to the other heads of state at the summit.” The Zimbabwean man said that, “If these pictures have contributed to the summit statement on Zimbabwe, then the death of this courageous young Christian will not have been entirely in vain. Despite this, the people here are very, very angry.”
The most recent figures for the economic situation are also contributing to the anger and desperation being felt in Zimbabwe. Inflation stands at more than 2.2 million percent, unemployment at 80 percent and basic food stuffs are disappearing from the shelves of supermarkets.
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One major Internet service provider, ZOL, no longer accepts Zimbabwe dollars and requires its customers to pay their bills with shares of Zimbabwe’s largest insurance provider Old Mutual or with diesel coupons.
Some locals are hoping that the latest news will signal a turn of events for the beleaguered country.
A security officer at a Harare hotel told the BBC that people are looking forward to making sure "people are having enough food and they are having enough medication from the hospitals."
However, ACN’s eyewitness sees violence lurking under the surface of Mugabe’s recent overtures of peace. He recalled that, “A British reporter, who tried to elicit details about the run-off election at the African Union summit in Egypt a week ago, was actually physically attacked by our president. Here too one can see the very dangerous side of this man, who now only breathes violence, talks violence, does violence -- so compulsively that for a brief moment he himself can forget his dignity as a head of state – for the sake of which he has after all declared war on his own people.”
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