Sir, Robert Rotberg's hand-wringing analysis of Zimbabwe ("Only Mbeki can restore sanity to Zimbabwe", December 7) begs a question: If President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is the only one who can help, why doesn't he?

He seems to have ample reason - the fear of contagious Zimbabwean land politics has already influenced the Namibian election and resonates elsewhere in the region, worrying the foreign investors that the African National Congress is so keen to attract.

Yet Mr Mbeki seems far from inclined to intervene. Indeed, he recently tongue-lashed his ruling alliance partners, the Confederation of South African Trade Unions, for daring to go on a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe and some ANC members of parliament deny the existence of a crisis at all.

A deeper analysis would have observed that Zimbabwe's undoubted travails have prompted a fire-sale of physical capital and land and South Africans have been prodigious buyers. The strength of the rand against the parlous Zimbabwe dollar has made it possible for large chunks of Zimbabwe to now be in South African hands.

The reason Mr Mbeki will not intervene in Zimbabwe, then, is that he is protecting South African interests. The ANC has, for example, recently finalised an agreement with the Zimbabwean government guaranteeing redress to any South Africans whose land is expropriated.

Understanding that South African investors are profiting so handsomely from Zimbabwe's collapse makes Mr Mbeki's diffidence more explicable. And it makes Zimbabwe's immediate future all the more grim.

Raj Patel, Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa