No longer an African problem

July 3 2008


No longer an African problem

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has reportedly told African leaders to examine their own records and claims to power before seeking to sanction him for his country's recent election violence. He told fellow leaders gathered at the two-day summit of the 53-nation African Union in Sharm Al Sheikh that their claims to power were no more legitimate than his and chastised President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria for having "worse elections than I did."
No wonder the other leaders who attended the summit could not move ahead with their effort to impose sanctions on Mugabe's Zimbabwe under intense Western pressure. Nor could they issue a public rebuke or even address a planned news conference, Instead, they encouraged Mugabe to enter into dialogue and form a power-sharing government with the country's opposition.
The Western governments seeking to pressure Mugabe, his spokesman George Charamba said, "can go and hang a thousand times."
However, Mugabe seemed to have made a compromise by saying he is ready to negotiate with the opposition in line with the call made by the African Union leaders, who held their Sharm Al Sheikh summit three days after Mugabe forced Zimbabweans to the polls to vote for him in a presidential runoff. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who won 48 per cent to Mugabe's 43 per cent in the initial round of voting in March, pulled out of the runoff saying he feared further violence against his people.
On Wednesday, Tsvangirai rejected dialogue with Mugabe saying conditions were not yet right for talks on forming a unity government.
Surely, he has his own reasons for adopting that position. He is insisting that the results of a first round of voting on March 29, in which he defeated Mugabe, should be the basis for talks.
Most people had expected the African Union summit to pressure Mugabe into changing his ways. However, the Zimbabwean leader's direct charge against them took the steam out of their push. Many of them are in  no position to defend their policies and claim legitimate claim to the positions they hold.
Indeed, that is one of the key problems of Africa. Only a handful of the heads of state and government in the continent could justifiably defend their claims to power. Others have come to power through strong-arm tactics and exploitation of tribal rivalries. Most African leaders have seized power by force and have ruled for decades since. They are in position to point any critical finger at Mugabe since none of them would like to see their own records on rights and governance scrutinised. It is even funny that the US-led Western camp finds fault only with Mugabe while doing business as usual with other African leaders whose records are worse than the Zimbabwean leader's.
However, that does not mean that Mugabe, who has one of the worst records ever for any African ruler, should be allowed to have his way and the problem of Zimbabwe should be allowed to worsen.
There is strong international concern that Zimbabwe is nearing political and economic collapse. There has to be strong and effective international action to solve the Zimbabwean crisis since it has become clear that the people of Zimbabwe have been rendered helpless to help themselves against their own government and now it has been proved that the African Union could not help them either.