In this
Guardian (UK) article, Robert Mugabe makes the case for why we need a "supranational" system of law and order. A system that will not be subject to any nation but will have the power and authority to protect the citizen individual nations from their own political leaders.
The world is full of dictators and tyrants from Burma to North Korea. Usually, while they remain inside the territory that they control they can easily to manipulate the governance and legislative structure in order to place themselves and their associates and cronies out of reach of the law. They might try to gain some credibility and respectability around the world by creating the semblance of due process, holding dummy elections for example. In Mugabe's case, this backfired despite the brutal use of state apparatus, a majority of Zimbabweans voted against his party, Zanu-PF in elections in March 2008. For a brief moment, the world held its' collective breath and imagined that this old school tyrant was about to accept his loss and bow out gracefully. There was even talk of negotiations for immunity from prosecution or being allowed to go into exile with his looted fortunes in return for handing over power. How naive we all were!
After a ridiculous delay in releasing the results of the March election, the regime declared that there was no outright winner of the presidential poll and has set about "campaigning" for the June 27th run off election. Despite their howls of protest that they had won the presidency fair and square, the world powers very quickly made it clear that if the opposition MDC party did not contest the run off they would, in effect be handing Mugabe the presidency. How can this be fair? By contesting the election, the opposition is condemning its supporters to become targets of the Mugabe intimidation machine. Many opposition activists have already been killed. Even diplomats from the US and UK were briefly detained and had their vehicles tyres slashed while trying to find out for themselves what life was like for ordinary Zimbabweans. Still we all do nothing.
Pontificating about how horrible it must be in Zimbabwe does nothing to change the status quo. As an African, I am disappointed in but not surprised by the silence and inaction of other African leaders, in particular Thabo Mbeki. Many African leaders themselves have dubious and tenuous claims to power and cannot (or more likely, will not) therefore criticise Mugabe. Mbeki however is the leader of what is purported to be Africa's premier democracy and a neighbor of Zimbabwe. His country has had to deal with a steady stream of Zimbabwean immigrants fleeing the repression and poverty. His lack of action on this issue is shameful! It took a strike of dock workers refusing to unload cargo to highlight that South Africa had been allowing shipments of weapons from China to pass through its' territory bound for land locked Zimbabwe. Stopping this shipment would have been a concrete statement to Mugabe's regime that their actions were beyond the pail. The problem here is that Mbeki, just like Mugabe, has has his world view indelibly marked by the colonial and racial history and politics in southern Africa in particular and Africa as a whole.
Mugabe has been expert at invoking the memories of white minority rule in what was then Rhodesia and by implication South Africa. He points out that the rich countries only showed interest in Zimbabwean politics when well off white farmers began to be evicted. On this narrow issue, he actually has a point. There was no outrage about the massacre in Matabeleland in the early 1980s. Other injustices in Africa have gone unnoticed. There are still many Africans resentful of the history of European intervention in Africa that see Mugabe as a symbol of freedom from that era of subjugation. In reality, Mugabe has proved that his regime can be just as repressive and oppressive as any of the previous white minority governments. Mugabe's political opponents are treated no better (and maybe even worse) than black South Africans were under Apartheid. Mugabe has always been a blood-thirsty tyrant but his loosening grip on power has led him to "release the beast within".
It is with a deep sadness and a heavy heart that I predict that on the 27th of June, Mugabe will make sure he rigs the election correctly this time. The Zimbabwean people will still be living in an essentially collapsed economy and the rest of the world will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
