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Mugabe
is the epicenter
Comment, Washington
Times
October
19, 2005
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20051018-092723-2675r.htm
Robert Mugabe,
Zimbabwe's despot, has given new meaning to the axiom absolute power
corrupts absolutely. He's tried all manner of tricks to shed blame
on his turning southern Africa's breadbasket into an agricultural
basketcase. He's even laid blame on Mother Nature, saying a drought,
not his violent land confiscation a few years back, shriveled up
his country's farmland. This week, Mr. Mugabe blamed the lesser
forces of man, or two men, to be exact.
In a speech
anticipated to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the U.N. Food
and Agriculture Organization, Mr. Mugabe departed from his scripted
message and instead plunged into a rant against President Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair. His rhetoric traveled a circuitous
tour around the globe, claiming the two Western are trying to unseat
him and other heads of state: "Must we allow these men, the two
unholy men of our millennium, who, in the same way as Hitler and
Mussolini formed [an] unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack
an innocent country? ... The voice of Mr. Bush and the voice of
Mr. Blair can't decide who shall rule in Zimbabwe, who shall rule
in Africa, who shall rule in Venezuela, who shall rule in Iran,
who shall rule in Iraq."
Mr. Mugabe is
the epicenter. He starves his own people of food, water and medicine
(the United States has given an estimated $110 million in food aid
alone). Indeed, since the World Food Summit of 2002,
the Mugabe regime has: destroyed the lives, homes and jobs of nearly
3 million people (or one-fifth of the population); forced 3.5 million
to flee to South Africa, Namibia and other neighboring nations;
pillaged its $700 million-a-year agricultural sector, which barely
brings in $200 million now; created what experts are calling the
"fastest-shrinking economy" in the world; created a water and energy
crisis; put in motion a public-health crisis.
The U.N. Security
Council has the necessary tools to take quick and decisive action.
Do the members have the requisite political wherewithal?
Christian and
humanitarian organizations have, in recent months, spoken decisively
about the potential crises that lie in the very distant future if
the repressive policies and violent henchmen are not stopped. "Leaders
of dictatorial regimes out there can no longer hide behind so-called
principle of non-interference in the affairs of another state in
order to get away with murder with impunity," Namibia's National
Society for Human Rights said this summer. The Methodist Church
of Southern Africa called the unfolding crises in Zimbabwe a "recipe
for genocide."
The case for
vigorous U.N. intervention has been made. The next step is obvious.
But we must not step blindly into Zimbabwe: Mr. Mugabe's favorite
pastime is his largess -- and that includes political patronage,
as well as maize and other foodstuffs.
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