In April 2008 I wrote that they would have to pry Zimbabwe from Robert Mugabe’s cold dead hands. At that time inflation was a mere 165 000 percent. It is now an unimaginable 231 million percent. The 100 million Zimbabwean dollar a week limit for bank withdrawals buys only three loaves of bread, if bread can be found that is. Prices double every 24 hours. Only one in ten people has work. It costs more for teachers to get to work by public transport, than they are paid in a month. On top of it all, an outbreak of Cholera threatens to become an epidemic.
How much misery can the world stand to witness before it acts? It is not as if there is no precedent. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Idi Amin of Uganda were both removed from power after their African neighbors intervened. South Africa has both the means and the moral imperative. Unless it takes the lead in ridding the world of another tinpot dictator in its own backyard due to a lack of political will, it risks being identified as an enabler in the worst humanitarian disaster the continent has seen. And if the countries of the SADC do not act, then the world must. How many Darfurs or Somalia’s must there be before we stand up for the wretched who share this planet. Its time for intervention, military if necessary,and damn the political and ethical arguments – just file it under exigent circumstances.
Filed under: Current Affairs, World Events
