Who gives a damn about Zimbabwe?

Editorial: Who gives a damn about Zimbabwe?

Saturday, Jul 14, 2007, Page 8
With Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (???) and Vice President
Annette Lu (???) taking simultaneous trips to Africa and Central America to
consolidate ties with the nation's allies, one might have expected no
shortage of faux pas for critics to seize on -- and rhetoric-by-numbers that
would make even supporters wince.

Yet the trips have proceeded smoothly. Instead, this week it was the Holy
See, Taiwan's sole European ally, that continued to provide lessons in
anti-diplomacy by sending hostile signals to its own rivals: moderate
Catholics, Muslims, Jews and, thanks to Pope Benedict's most recent
broadside, Protestants and Orthodox Christians.

For all of its platitudes on peace, the Vatican is in a fighting mood. Such
a shame, then, that it could not be more aggressive in combating genuine
tyranny. One would have thought that failing states and dictators -- such as
Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe -- might be more deserving of a papal
campaign than the devout on the other side of the fence.

Apparently not.

Zimbabwe, a former economic success story, is close to collapse now that the
government has sunk to the point of arresting shopowners who heed inflation.
A lot of innocent lives are on the line. But few governments seem to be
taking the situation seriously to the extent that they would act.

Among others, South African President Thabo Mbeki deserves contempt for
giving years of solace to a sociopath who has torn his country apart. South
Africa, for one, may yet rue the consequences of this moral outrage and
tactical stupidity.

Indeed, the Zimbabwe debacle teaches us a number of lessons about this part
of Africa. Perhaps the most fundamental is that obvious omens for the
ruination of a country -- co-opting of the courts by the government, an
unhinged military and police force, xenophobic economic policy, rigged
elections -- can stare neighboring countries in the face for years with nary
a complaint. Evicting whites from farms and other locations seemed at the
time to be a political tactic to appeal to the moronic element and even to
other governments; in retrospect, it seems to have been the only tactic
available to a man who would prefer destroying his country to relinquishing
power.

Second, Zimbabwe is another example of just how fanciful the idea of a
United States of Africa is -- with or without the likes of Libyan leader
Muammar Qaddafi at the helm.

Third is the culpability of the UN. This organization continues to shield
tyrants such as Mugabe from meaningful pressure because of the pervasive
influence of despotic regimes -- in this case, the presence of a primary
Mugabe benefactor, China, on the UN Security Council. Only a few years ago
we heard top UN officials sighing that more should have been done in Rwanda
to save the lives of the victims of genocide. But those people's successors
in today's UN bureaucracy are silent on Zimbabwe as it prepares to commit
suicide.

Yet there is one courageous Catholic, Archbishop Pius Ncube, who has shown
himself to have the stuff of heroes -- unlike his religious masters and most
of the rest of the world's governments -- by putting his life on the line in
calling for international intervention to remove Mugabe and his thugs from
power.

If Taiwan can learn anything from this disgraceful saga and from such
people, it is that commitment and honor offer hope and inspiration in the
shadow of the worst oppression. Faced with violence and terror, the good,
wise man speaks the truth and speaks firmly, while carefully preparing for
the consequences.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/07/14/2003369522


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