Zimbabwe's most prominent opposition leader, his face swollen and a large gash on his head, appeared in court Tuesday along with about 50 other activists, two days after they were arrested for trying to attend a prayer meeting.
The country was once prosperous and Robert Mugabe has overseen the impoverishment of one of Africa's few bright spots:
Opponents of President Robert Mugabe blame him for acute food shortages, inflation of some 1,600 percent — the highest in the world — and repression and corruption. They have demanded the ouster of 83-year-old Mugabe, Zimbabwe's only ruler since independence from Britain in 1980.
I can only shudder at how bad that country will get. And wonder if South Africa is prepared to intervene in order to restore order when Zimbabwe falls apart.
UPDATE: Strategypage notes the looming potential disaster:
The end game here is similar to what happened to dictator Joseph Mobutu in Zaire (now Congo) ten years ago, when long simmering opposition finally toppled the tyrant. Then again, the fall of Mobutu led to a decade of tribal violence that killed over five percent of the population.
This may provide an interesting experiment of the whole justice versus peace argument. In Iraq, the question is obscured by hatred of President Bush. Justice demanded we rid Iraq of Saddam and defeat the bloodthirsty killers who bomb civilians and Coalition soldiers today. Even though Saddam's toll on human life was greater, today's very obvious violence would not exist if Saddam was still oppressing the majority quietly.
So what will the vaunted international community do about Zimbabwe? Is the chaos that could result from getting rid of Mugabe a price worth paying? Or is Mugabe and his disastrous rule a price worth paying to prevent Zaire-scale chaos.
And if you don't like that choice, would it have been better to have gone back in time 20 years and removed Mugabe before he wrecked his country? If so, how do you recognize when a ruler will create that choice in 10-20 years time?
But preemption is bad. And if we had toppled Mugabe in 1990, nobody would ever know what we stopped.
UPDATE: We don't like the choice I laid out and are trying to have it both ways:
The U.S. is working closely with the European Union to "change the behavior'' of President Robert Mugabe's regime and will try to ensure that any further sanctions don't hurt the Zimbabwean people, the State Department said.
"We want to try to do what's effective'' without worsening the humanitarian crisis in the African nation, department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington yesterday.
Ah, regime behavior change. The world will fogive all if Mugabe stops acting like Mugabe and Zimbabwe improves. So much for justice. As the saying goes, nice work if you can get it.
The world will have to make the big choice.
