The Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit starting on Sunday at Victoria Falls will be a triumph for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. And yet, another bitter pill for most of his long-suffering people to swallow.
After being in SADC's high-care ward for so long, Mugabe will return, with an official clean bill of health from the organisation, and no doubt huge presidential acclaim, to host his peers and to take its chair for the year to come.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's economy continues the plunge that really accelerated after Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party took back full control of the country, and ended the coalition government with the two Movement for Democratic Change formations in the elections of July 2013.
The coalition government in place since 2009 had restored some investor confidence in the country, but most of that has now dissipated. It is likely that Mugabe will enjoy the extra pleasure at this summit of having the SADC Tribunal delivered to him, like John the Baptist's head, on a silver platter. What more could the nonagenarian possibly want?
It was the SADC Tribunal which, starting in 2007, delivered several judgments which ruled that Mugabe's government could not evict Mike Campbell and other white farmers from their land, as the evictions amounted to discrimination against whites under Zimbabwe's constitution.
Zimbabwe, of course, simply ignored the rulings and pulled out of the Tribunal in protest, challenging its legitimacy. In one of its most egregious contradictions of its own principles, the 2010 SADC summit ordered a review of the functions and terms of reference of the Tribunal, effectively suspending its operations.