Looks like South Africa may have had about enough of Robert Mugabe and has put the situation in Zimbabwe on the docket for a Security Council session they'll be chairing.
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Losing Friends
29 Apr 2008 12:35 pm
Comments (12)
About damn time.
OT
Dear Lord,
I humbly beseech You to take the life of the Devil Monster Hillary Clinton, in any manner you see fit, though hopefully in a quick but agonizingly painful manner.
Wow. Morgan Tsvangirai invitated to address the Security Council. Thank God.
South Africa stuck with Mugabe for so long for the same reason we stuck with apartheid South Africa-- they were on the right side, with the right enemies. It's not a great way to view the world.
What took them so long?
I hate to tell you Fred, because you're not going to like it: an insidious groups of workers, who were members of a union defied the heroic captains of industry who were gracious enough to provide those workers with paying jobs and refused to unload a shipment of chinese arms that arrived in a South African port bound for Zimbabwe to be used in a military crackdown against the political opposition. This seems to have been the tipping point.
South Africa's been burdened by a major influx of refugees from Zimbabwe, those who haven't been eaten by lions along the way that is, so it's not surprising that it finally is compelled to do something.
Re: Peter
Not to mention the fact that those refugees spread HIV like wildfire, both by carrying it into the Union and by rapid infections once they're living in the quasi-Bantustans.
As much as I despise Mbeki and his Ministry of Health, fixing the Zimbabwe refugee problem would go a long way to alleviating the crisis in Zuidafrika. Of course, that the best way to do so would be making Zimbabwe a happy and healthy, not to mention (for Africa) a rich place to live seems to have never occurred to them until now.
But then, Mbeki's been fucking up since day one, so this surprises me not at all.
COSATU has been helping lead the regional struggle for the rights of Zimbabweans, while being reasonably cautious about pushing for actions which risked some sort of Mugabe over-reaction which could lead to state collapse -- a real risk in these situations.
It is hard for me to tell if refugees would "spread AIDS", given roughly equal infection rates in both countries. Although any mass geographic and economic dislocation makes things worse.
I think that Mbeki, and most African leaders (a) have no particular fetish about democracy -- meaning, democracy is OK, but one can do without it (b) there is actually some record of direct interventions having disastrous results, Uganda and Congo.
Luckily, the population of RSA and rank and file of ANC seem to have a higher regard for democracy, Zambia actually got rid of its first post-independence president and had some democratic alterations of parties in power. Mozambique is not a dictatorship either. Also, RSA is 900 lb gorilla there, so once RSA bestirs itself, all neighbors of landlocked Zimbabwe will follow, and this at the very least, means no extra ammo for Mugabe, and it is quite a blow to his internal image.
"Luckily, the population of RSA and rank and file of ANC seem to have a higher regard for democracy,"
As always we have the strange American equivalence of "democracy" with voting, rather than with civil society, rule of law, alternations of who is in power, etc etc.
Regarding SA, certainly there has yet to be an alternation of who is in power, while rule of law and civil society are considered, among the bulk of the population, as effete Western items that might as well be tossed when they give the "wrong" results.
The whole brouhaha regarding Jacob Zuma doesn't give me much confidence in the wisdom of the ANC rank and file, and I suspect that once he gets control, we're going to see the ANC's supermajority in parliament turned towards rewriting some of the more problematic (ie pro rule of law/civil society) provisions.
It is hard for me to tell if refugees would "spread AIDS", given roughly equal infection rates in both countries. Although any mass geographic and economic dislocation makes things worse.
I think that Mbeki, and most African leaders (a) have no particular fetish about democracy -- meaning, democracy is OK, but one can do without it (b) there is actually some record of direct interventions having disastrous results, Uganda and Congo.
Luckily, the population of RSA and rank and file of ANC seem to have a higher regard for democracy, Zambia actually got rid of its first post-independence president and had some democratic alterations of parties in power. Mozambique is not a dictatorship either. Also, RSA is 900 lb gorilla there, so once RSA bestirs itself, all neighbors of landlocked Zimbabwe will follow, and this at the very least, means no extra ammo for Mugabe, and it is quite a blow to his internal image.
Turns out this post is completely wrong:
Security Council Voices Reluctance to Act on Zimbabwe
By WARREN HOGE and CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: April 30, 2008
UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council heard on Tuesday what an American official called a “sobering” account of electoral stalemate and violence in Zimbabwe, but ended up discouraging proposals for direct United Nations involvement in the crisis.
“There are a number of delegations that don’t believe the Council should be engaged on this, which is regrettable,” said the official, Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy American ambassador.
The briefing, delivered to a closed session of the Council by B. Lynn Pascoe, the under secretary general for political affairs, prompted calls from the United States and its European allies for sending a fact-finding mission or special envoy to the country.
Karen Pierce, Britain’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said Mr. Pascoe had spoken of “a level of political intimidation and violence that I think many Council members found quite chilling.”
But diplomats said the proposals ran into opposition led by South Africa, this month’s president of the Council. “It’s their country; we don’t need a special envoy,” said Dumisani Kumalo, the South African ambassador.
The UN is not riding to the rescue of Zimbabwe's democracy. No matter how much Matthew thinks liberal internationalism is the solution to everything.
Comments closed May 13, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
What took them so long?
Posted by Fred | April 29, 2008 12:42 PM