Sep 27 2007
Why the silence on Zimbabwe and the noise on Burma?
It’s great to see the people take to the streets in Burma to try to sweep away a repressive and incompetent regime. It’s great to learn that the mobile phone and the internet allows the rest of us to hear and see their protest, motivating more of our own governments to try to increase the international pressure on the military tyranny.
Even the UN woke up and tried to broker an agreement between Security Council members to pressurise the Burmese executive.
The UN also revealed, once again, how difficult it is to use that body to get concerted and effective action to defend the right of people to free speech and democratic self government, when some of the most powerful countries of the world still do not have that themselves, or do not believe in it sufficiently. Let’s hope that this time the people can break through. If they do, it will be a triumph for people power and a victory thanks to their bravery.
It is also leads me to ask why is there such a crushing international silence on the outrages in Zimbabwe? Is it because a defeated and damaged people cannot get onto the streets in sufficient numbers for the western media to have good pictures? Is that what it takes to get western governments these days active and concerned about such flagrant abuses of human rights?
We learn this week that Mugabe is going to nationalise all foreign owned companies in his country, by forcing them to sell 51% of their businesses, under the pressure of not being able to trade if they refuse. Mugabe and his cronies will be able to decide what if anything they pay for the shares.
The main losers from all this will once again be the overwhelming majority of the Zimbabwean people who are not Mugabe’s cronies. Large multinationals have relatively small investments in Zimbabwe and will be able to write these off if they haven’t already done so. The evil regime has hoisted a large notice over the prison doors to their country “Do not invest here. Do not create jobs here. Do not buy and sell here”. Will someone in western governments please do something? Will the UN wake up from its slumbers and show it has the diplomatic skills to mobilise the international community against this evil?
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
This point has also been made forcefully over at David Miliband’s new blog.
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/blogs/david_miliband/archive/2007/09/26/13662.aspx#comments
Unlike the Burmese monks, when the Archbishop of Bulawayo (backed by other clergy) called for international action to protect his people he met silence.
Let’s face it, Gordon Brown is trying to show strength on the Zimbabwe and Burma issues but isn’t really achieving anything apart from looking rather weak.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/style-over-substance-mr-brown/
Does anyone see the irony in Western democracies asking one oppressive, dictatorial regime China, to put pressure on another
Mugabee is the one person responsible for the demise in his country. However, I listened to his speech at the UN last night and to be honest some of the points he made in relation to the USA and Britain had some truth in them.
I do not personally feel that sanctions help the majority of Mugabee’s people, if anything they suffer more from them. I do not believe there is any real stomach for military action amongst the usual suspects to resolve this situation. I also feel that Mugabee is still seen as a hero amongst many black Africans as he has effectively stuck two fingers up at the former white colonial powers. It is a mess and I do not know what the answer is, but something does need to be done if for no other reason than to end the suffering inflicted on this once prosperous and largely self-sufficient country.
I am not one for continuous handouts year upon year for Africa; I feel we need to help them to help themselves. Many of the problems of Africa, setting aside natural disasters, stem from cultural attitudes amongst the population. I was interested to read recently, that since Britain gave independence to Malawi, life expectancy has dramatically dropped. This phenomenon has been repeated in many of the former colonies not just former British ones.
Zimbabwe was always going to be a tragedy once Mugabe took over. Now that the country is in economic meltdown and all pretence at human rights and democratic political practice have been abandoned, it really is time that the international community looked at the case for military intervention. The dire economic problems in Zimbabwe will eventually lead to starvation and disease. This is no longer a question of politics but has become a question of life and death. Mugabe seems entrenched and untouchable. If powers felt compelled to act against Saddam Hussain why won’t they even consider acting against the Marxist Mugabe? If Mugabe is ever deposed he should stand trial for human rights abuses.
A good question. The reality is Gordon is all talk, smoke and mirrors right now. What has he actually done, apart from threaten not to go to a conference which he hates going to anyway ?
Funnily enough, I was reading from a book of (neo)cconservative essays this lunchtime, and noticed that Margaret Thatcher hinted in 1996 (in her speech ‘New Threats for Old’) what Rudolph Giuliani made more explicit in his recent UK speech: that NATO needs to assume the role of a ‘democracies only’ United Nations who can actually be relied upon to intervene in suffering countries rather than sit around passing condeming motions about Israel!
reply: The UN is often hindered by anti demoractic countries protecting nasty regimes.
They may have a new leader but times obviously do not change in the Labour party. As with recent announcements that they wish to ‘help’ people who tackle crime this is merely another example of the government jumping on a convenient bandwagon - and Gordon told us that he wasn’t all about spin!
The Free Market Foundation published this article as their article of the week
http://www.freemarketfoundation.com/showArticle.asp?ArticleType=AOTW
The most dramatic fact in this is the reduction of life expectancy in Zim. The situation is causing chaos in the surrounding countries with roughly half the country having fled his rule.
Incidently Robert Gabriel Mugabe won the Libertarian “Marie Antoinette” dictator of the year award last year. I think they are still awaiting someone to pick it up…