Thug Mugabe rigged his latest elections and South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, might have played a positive role in holding Mugabe accountable for this travesty of elections and the despotic rule that has impoverished Zimbabwe and turned it into a basket case. But no, Mbeki has done no good. He let Mugabe get away with blatant vote rigging and even helped. And unwilling to restrict his thug protection racket to southern Africa, he ranged far north to a worse situation and threw his two cents into that genocide:
Zimbabwe isn't the only place where Mbeki has been disappointing. On New ear's Day he visited Sudan and addressed that country's government. If ever there was an opportunity for some peer-to-peer truth-telling, surely this was it: Sudan's Arab leaders are engaged in the systematic killing of ethnic Africans in the western province of Darfur. But Mbeki spoke understandingly of "the challenges facing the government," and reserved his toughest comments for the easy scapegoat of imperialism. "When these eminent representatives of British colonialism were not in Sudan, they were in South Africa, and vice versa, doing terrible things wherever they went," he lectured.
We can't intervene everywhere and Zimbabwe is one place we should stay away from. Diplomatic support, sure. But any type of force? Forget it. If the locals won't even raise an eyebrow at the thuggish behavior going on around them, who are we to insist they live in a better neighborhood.
But this is what happens when we do nothing. The thugs win.
And South Africa wants a permanent seat on the Security Council? I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad.
On the other hand, they've earned a slot on the Human Rights Committee. They'd fit right in.
