Make poverty history – or make dictators history?
July 7th, 2005
In this article, Sokwanele outlines five urgent priorites for the G8 summit:
- First and foremost emergency relief for the victims of Mugabe’s recent (and ongoing) “Operation Murambatsvina”. News of this pogrom against the poor is already circulating widely and has drawn international condemnation. Indeed at this moment the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy, Anna Tibaijuka, is continuing her investigation into this massive humanitarian disaster that has rendered more than a million Zimbabweans homeless and destroyed the livelihoods of an even greater number. Sokwanele has posted a number of reports and photographs of this brutal
assault upon the poor and we, and others, have highlighted the wretched plight of the victims.They are in urgent need of emergency relief aid in the form of food, blankets, shelter, fresh water, toilet facilities and medical care, which clearly the bankrupt Mugabe regime has neither the means nor the will to supply. Accordingly it would be a wonderful gesture if the G8 and other world leaders would acknowledge the crisis and begin to mobilize resources for relief. We must emphasise that what we have in mind here is not aid and debt cancellation, but simply emergency relief supplies to assist, in the short term, the huge number of victims.
Furthermore as the Mugabe regime is the perpetrator of these atrocities it is hardly to be trusted to administer relief supplies to the victims, so the relief effort would have to be supervised by an international body of standing such as the United Nations. Let the UN exercise its authority here to insist on direct access to those in desperate need and the right to supervise the whole operation.
- Second, we see the need for a far greater degree of honesty from the international community in acknowledging the root causes of the present suffering. Especially does this apply to African leaders who, to date, have gone to great pains to avoid condemning Mugabe and his totalitarian regime. In fact their refusal to confront the core issue here calls into question their seriousness in committing to the values of freedom, democracy and good governance – and hence their own eligibility to participate in any new anti-poverty partnership with the West.
Bob Geldof who organised the Live 8 aid concert for Africa, put it this way:
“What about the absolute, absolute thuggery, brutality and mayhem of that mad creep Mugabe? Why does Africa refuse to acknowledge what is happening in that country? This man is mad. He’s destroying his country; he’s killing his people.”
Admittedly we wouldn’t expect African leaders to use quite such undiplomatic language (!) but this is the reality after all, and the sooner Thabo Mbeki and other regional leaders admit it publicly the better. Acknowledging the problem is surely the first step towards finding a solution.
- The next priority must be to intensify international efforts to isolate the Mugabe regime diplomatically. The targeted sanctions applied against the ZANU-PF leadership by the European Union, the USA, Switzerland and a handful of Commonwealth countries, are hurting and should be intensified and extended to cover all those who are collaborating with the Mugabe regime in any significant way, and so prolonging the suffering of the Zimbabwean people.
- Closely related to the above, we note and endorse the call of human rights activist and writer Judith Todd for total sanctions to be applied. On June 30 Ms Todd (herself a victim of an earlier form of tyranny in this country under Ian Smith) called for “very serious action against the genocidal regime”. She referred to the possibility of stopping all arms sales, all sales of spare parts, bank loans and “everything that can extend the life of the regime.” As the evil monster of apartheid was undermined by the application of an increasing range of international sanctions, so might the end of the Mugabe regime be hastened. Every day by which that objective is brought forward means one less day of acute suffering for millions of Zimbabweans.
- Finally the international community must give urgent consideration to supporting and assisting in every way possible those progressive forces within Zimbabwe which are working for peaceful, non-violent change. One of the tragic consequences of prolonged misrule and the melt-down of the economy is that millions of Zimbabweans have taken refuge beyond the borders of the country of their birth. Refugees and asylum seekers have their own desperate needs which must still be addressed urgently, but we are referring here to the needs
of those activists who have demonstrated exemplary courage in leading the struggle for freedom and democracy from within Zimbabwe. Sadly they are often lacking the resources and support which they require and deserve, and we would call the attention of all democratic, freedom-loving peoples to this deficit.
