Power in Zimbabwe has reached a tipping point.

If you listen carefully to the sounds coming from Zimbabwe, the sound you are hearing is the shift of power from the sclerotic, corrupt old establishment to a new generation. And it requires clear, new policies from South Africa and governments around the world.

For years there have been increasingly anguished debates about how to deal with Robert Mugabe, between those who said “fight him till he’s beaten” and those who said work for change from within.

But now, for better or worse, there is a government whose power is growing by the minute. The workaholic Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have promised to pay salaries in hard currency, and they have met their first payrolls. Goods are coming back into the shops.

This deal is South Africa’s deal. South Africa sacrificed its reputation as a human rights advocate for it. It sacrificed international respect. We sacrificed probably upwards of one percent of our growth rate for our plan for Zimbabwe. And that pain caused a disruptive flood of desperate refugees, bringing cholera and desperate hunger to South African streets.

Some of our neighbours suffered more. Botswana watched helplessly as foot-and-mouth disease crossed its borders, savaging its cattle herds and its international supply contracts. The whole SADC region has been damaged.

Now we have the South African deal in place. We have a unity government, fights over which divided families and former allies, because Mugabe retained effective control over the security services that have abrogated the rule of law and sent people at every level of society from parliamentarians to peasants fleeing into hiding for their lives. These conditions were apparent for at least eight years.

Historians may argue over the moment of change. It was probably the point at which Tsvangirai, Biti and their colleagues walked into their offices and began work. For the people, it may be seen as the moment that Susan Tsvangirai died.

Although the tragic death of the prime minister’s wife took place into different circumstances from the death of Chris Hani in 1992 in South Africa, in the public mind it may become fixed as Zimbabwe’s “Chris Hani moment.”

In South Africa, that was the moment when, after his cold-blooded murder, Nelson Mandela went on television to calm the people. It was the moment we all realised, Mandela is actually the man with the power. Though it took another couple of years to become president, the public realised it was just a matter of time.

That is the moment Zimbabwe is at now. What new policies fit the moment?

First, South Africa must pay up. It’s our deal. We own it, and we must pay for it. The issue has nothing to do with Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s rare public moment, irrelevantly claiming it was time for the West to drop sanctions. The sanctions are against individuals in government. They are not the cause of Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, nor will their relaxation be its cure.

No, the first big payment must come from South Africa. We must front enough money to keep the government going for three months, to pay its civil servants, soldiers, and policemen, while it begins to re-establish services and policies that will bring food into stores and workers to rebuild infrastructure and run offices.

In that time, those that support the new ministers will be joined by many Zimbabweans in government jobs or private citizens, in recognising that for Zimbabwe to rebuild requires commitment to the new order.

Of the Western countries that have been outspoken about Zimbabwe, only Australia has agreed to provide a small injection to back the new government. That is no bad thing. This is first of all South Africa’s problem. We rejected the world’s advice. We made the deal. We own it. We must make the first substantial payments.

For the next round of payments, governments must keep up the pressure. The next change needed is for the country’s central bank governor, Gideon Gono, to be shown the door. Foreign ministers know that he takes called from the presidency and sends him money. Then we see his wife on overseas shopping sprees as her people starve.

The new demand must be that Gono must go. South Africa must take the lead in this, and if it forgets its duty, the world should remind us. South Africa is the key to change in Zimbabwe, and we are not immune to international opinion.

The first tranche of money will consolidate power in the new government. Gono’s necessary departure will entrench it. The next step after that must be the changing of the guard at the justice and home affairs ministries, so that when innocent people get out of jail, they stay out.

Zimbabwe should be the fastest growing economy in the world within months, because a vibrant country as been destroyed. Now the world economy is in deep trouble, South Africa’s selfish interests demand that in the one place we can improve with small commitments provided we have the political will, we must act now.

Payment is not the end. It is only the beginning. This is our deal, we have to see that it works so that money does not go to Grace Mugabe and prison torturers, but to the hungry and the rebuilders.