Zimbabwe: Challenge to African Leaders

By Nick Apata
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
napata@nigeriahorizon.com

The harassed and cowered people of Zimbabwe must now be wishing for the passage of the Olympic torch through their capital city of Harare instead of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. May be, just may be that would draw world attention to the travesty taking place in their homeland right now. While Tibetans must be thanking whoever came up with the idea of a traveling Olympic torch, Zimbabweans are not that lucky. They are now used and resigned to the world’s subtle indifference to their plight. But this has always been the case. Mugabe has terrorized his own people for close to 28 years and the world has enjoyed its bystander status. Mugabe’s land invasion of 2000 attracted condemnation from the West largely because white farmers were at the receiving end of his brutality.

More tragic though has been the ‘he’s one of us’ mentality of African leaders who have unwisely refused to bring the hammer down on an old tyrant who has nothing but grief to offer his people. Mbeki who wields the most influence in the region has failed to deal with Mugabe in an honest manner. His criticism of the man in the past has been feeble, insincere and inconsequential. He has been opposed to any international sanction meant to check Mugabe’s excesses with the old, tired refrain that the Zimbabwe people will suffer under those sanctions. Now, Mbeki has in his usual manner denied that there was any election crisis in Zimbabwe just as he bold facedly denied the other time the existence of AIDS.

The African Union has also failed dismally in its duty to protect all Africans from any form of oppression by their leaders. What actually is the relevance of this organization? Why has the AU failed to deal decisively with the Sudanese government over the human problem in the Darfur region? But more importantly why has the organization chosen to look the other way while Mugabe’s reign of terror continues unabated? Why has he not been treated as a political and social pariah so as to send a stern message to other leaders who might want to turn their countries into killing fields?

Mugabe boasted the other day that no opposition party will rule the country as long as he lives. Now faced with obvious defeat, the old, wily one is looking for yet another means to subvert the people’s will, hence the withholding of the election results. Mbeki has gone to Harare to pay a solidarity visit to his embattled friend. He might have also pleaded with Mugabe to do the right thing. But the old, unrepentant and repeated offender like Mugabe requires stern and direct warnings from his powerful and influential neighbors, not just empty pleas.

By his kid glove approach to Mugabe’s political debauchery, Mbeki has become an enabler of one of the worst leaders to have ever existed in the continent of Africa. Could it be that South Africa is a beneficiary of the present brain drain in Zimbabwe?  Could that be part of what informs Mbeki’s complicity in this matter?

African leaders must be held accountable for the growth and well-being of that continent otherwise the ideals and goals of the AU will be for naught. The political tragedy in Zimbabwe must be brought to an end and I do not for once think that opposition parties in that country can do it alone. African leaders must stop this nonsense about not interfering or meddling in the business of other sovereign countries.

 No one is calling for the invasion of Zimbabwe to force the old lion out. No, but we are not hearing unequivocal condemnation of his behavior, we are not hearing of sanctions such as banishment from AU summits. Even efforts to prevent him from the last Commonwealth Summit were vehemently protested by his ‘political brothers’. So with this tacit support outside his country, why would the fading, maximum ruler sober up?

Elections were held in Zimbabwe over a week ago but the country’s President is sitting on the results because they did not favor him and his party. His brazen disregard for the electorates is also an insult to the new democratic process that Africa is currently embracing. Mugabe knows that his time is done; he’s only left with his pride and the perceived shame that will trail him if he voluntarily relinquishes power.

That is why African leaders must find a way to convince him that this is the time to go and allow the people to start the processes of rebuilding their beloved country again. AU leaders have not done anything significant in the region, at least not in recent memory. They couldn’t do anything in Rwanda in 1994 just as they are currently helpless in Darfur. Therefore it will be a major achievement for them if they could broker an arrangement that will lead to the peaceful exit of Mugabe from the political scene of his country. Enough of this wait-and-see attitude.

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Other articles by Nick Apata:

Ribadu as Scapegoat for a Nation's Failure
The Houses Obasanjo Built
Wanted: A Few Good Men and Women
Barack Obama: The Dream Continues
Between Party Leaders and Elected Political Office Holders