On Tuesday, April 26, the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center hosted Senator David Coltart, Zimbabwean human rights activist and former Minister of Education, for a discussion on Zimbabwe.

Africa Center Deputy Director Bronwyn Bruton welcomed attendees to the event, which took place on Capitol Hill.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce provided opening remarks, in which he recalled his first trip to Zimbabwe amid the country’s economic collapse and crippling hyper-inflation.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce opened the discussion

Coltart then provided an overview of his own work in Zimbabwe, where he served two terms as an opposition MP before being elected Senator and appointed Minister of Education, Sport, Arts, and Culture in the Government of National Unity of 2009. He warned that infighting within the country’s ruling party—as well as the opposition—has left the country in the lurch, and he suggested that violent spillover from these political disputes was possible.

In the lively discussion that ensued, attendees discussed the country’s economy, multilateral sanctions, and who might succeed longtime President Robert Mugabe.

Image: Left to right: Bronwyn Bruton, Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council Africa Center, and Senator David Coltart, Zimbabwean Human Rights Lawyer; Minister of Education, Sports, Arts, and Culture (2009-13); Founding Member, Movement for Democratic Change