By Andrew Quinn
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's accelerating economic collapse is bringing pressure on its neighbours to end their long resistance to doing something about the crisis.
Analysts say Zimbabwe, once one of the strongest countries in Africa, is now a real threat to regional economic stability and has raised the spectre of frightening bloodshed.
Millions of economic refugees have already fled from Zimbabwe's chaos into neighbouring states.
But despite signs of a gathering storm, Zimbabwe's southern African neighbours have in recent years done little publicly to address a crisis already rippling across their borders.
Political analysts say the speed and severity of Zimbabwe's downward spiral - and President Robert Mugabe's new plan to extend his term in office by another two years to 2010 - may now finally force some action.
"The last two years have definitely seen an acceleration of the crisis," said Chris Maroleng, a researcher on Zimbabwe at South Africa's Institute for Strategic Studies. "It has reached a point where everybody is afraid."
Mugabe, 83, is regularly lambasted by critics for human rights abuses, intimidating opponents, stealing elections and running his country to economic ruin.
The ageing leader, who despite problems at home remains an icon for many veterans of Africa's liberation struggle, says he has been targeted by the West for putting blacks in control of the economy - although critics say this has been a cover for widespread graft and economic patronage.
Analysts say Mugabe has exploited what he calls a "racist preoccupation with Zimbabwe" by highlighting poverty rather than mismanagement as the region's main problem, hobbling regional leaders who fear being seen as agents for his Western opponents.
But that may be starting to change.
Once southern Africa's breadbasket, Zimbabwe now suffers inflation of around 1 600 percent, 80 percent unemployment, severe shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange, and rising worker unrest.
Fearing a new push on the streets to unseat Mugabe, the government last month slapped an open-ended ban on political rallies and protests.
The influential International Crisis Group this week compared the situation in Zimbabwe to the final months of former Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko, who was driven from power in 1997 after a chaotic and bloody Congolese civil war.
"A political and economic crisis that has reached its seventh year is pushing Zimbabwe towards total collapse," the think tank said in a report, which noted that the Southern African Development Community and, importantly, South Africa were under pressure to get involved.
"South Africa and other SADC nations are increasingly tired of the crisis," the report said.
South Africa, the regional power, has a patchy record on Zimbabwe and a lukewarm relationship with the country's opposition, led by the Movement for Democratic Change.
President Thabo Mbeki long promoted what he called "quiet diplomacy" to deal with Mugabe. But with no visible results, commentators are increasingly pushing for a change in tactics.
"Our complicity in sustaining and deepening the crisis should prevent us from walking away," Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya said in an editorial this week. "We should care about Zimbabwe because it is hurting us."
SADC is widely expected to take the lead in any regional effort to promote change in Zimbabwe, though the Botswana-based grouping is not widely regarded as a diplomatic powerhouse.
It has nevertheless appointed Namibia, Tanzania and Lesotho to spearhead a Zimbabwe policy, spurring new hopes for results that have eluded prior regional diplomatic efforts.
"SADC is doing everything possible to resolve the issues," said Malawi Deputy Foreign Minister Henry Mumba. "But the Zimbabwe problem is an internal one and we have limits on how far we can go."
Those limits are being tested, as millions of Zimbabwean job-seekers flood into neighbouring countries and historic trade links wither.
Maroleng of the Institute for Strategic Studies said it may be some time before Zimbabwe's neighbours find the courage to openly confront Mugabe - but the time appeared to be coming.
"In the past SADC has not shown the political will to try this with Zimbabwe. They don't need to reinvent the wheel, they just need to find a consensus that it needs to be done," he said.
(Additional reporting by Mabvuto Banda in Lilongwe, Shapi Shacinda in Lusaka)