What will the UN say next about Zimbabwe?
December 5th, 2005
UN humanitarian envoy Jan Egeland is in Zimbabwe visiting the victims of Robert Mugabe‘s Operation Murambatsvina. Earlier today he had to “wade through the mud” of the fetid squalid camps they are forced to live in after the destruction of their homes. This visit from the UN follows the one from Anna Tabaijuka which resulted in a damning report for Mugabe’s government. Tabaijuka found that Operation Murambatsvina had “breached both national and international human rights law provisions guiding evictions, thereby precipitating a humanitarian crisis”. (The report is available to download here).
Kofi Anan supported her findings in his statement:
“It is a profoundly distressing report, which confirms that “Operation Murambatsvina†has done a catastrophic injustice to as many as 700,000 of Zimbabwe’s poorest citizens, through indiscriminate actions, carried out with disquieting indifference to human suffering. I call on the Government to stop these forced evictions and demolitions immediately, and to ensure that those who orchestrated this ill-advised policy are held fully accountable for their actions.
However, Mugabe has responded to Egeland’s visit in a typically unrepentent pugnacious manner: “Mr Egeland was invited to “correct” the bias of that report, said Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe“.
So those are Mugabe’s terms, are they? That’s his expected outcome from the visit?
Egeland himself hasn’t said very much yet (he is meeting Mugabe tomorrow), but the emphasis for his visit so far seems to be on encouraging the government to allow the U.N. to assist those in need:
Hmmm …?! Well, that all depends on whether the Zimbabwean government gives a damn about the victims, doesn’t it? And all evidence to date is they don’t care in the slightest – in fact, they caused and continue to cause their suffering. So, let’s just keep watching this spot for now.
Can we expect Jan Egeland to be very critical of the government, even if they patently deserve to be hauled over the coals for their criminal abuses of human rights? Apparently not. The BBC reports that they were told by one UN official that agencies were “caught between a rock and a hard place”:
They have an obligation to maintain a presence in Zimbabwe and, he said, they cannot achieve much without collaborating with Mr Mugabe.
The BBC’s Barnaby Phillips says Mr Egeland will get a better understanding of this awkward dilemma for the UN – to concentrate on humanitarian work or confront the government but risk losing all influence.
You could say that this ‘los of influence’ happened to the Commonwealth booted Zimbabwe out of the commonwealth with the result that Don McKinnon, previously hugely critivcal of Mugabe’s government’s policies, leading Michael Holman to comment in The Times (UK):
“So much for Mr McKinnon’s pledge this week to “make human rights one of the Commonwealth’s cornerstonesâ€. Not a mention of the plight of Zimbabwe’s people on behalf of an organization which, ironically, drew up its commitment to decency in Harare itself in 1991. The reason for the omission? Since Zimbabwe withdrew from membership two years ago, it is, Mr McKinnon told us, no longer a Commonwealth concern – an evasion which, by the way, was never applied to apartheid South Africa, which also left the club. The result is that a human rights crisis as serious as any Africa has faced is not on the official agenda in Malta. So it is victory for Robert Mugabe.”
It is a morally questionable evasion because the violation of human rights is something that should concern us all regardless.
Given the UN’s ‘awkward dilemma’, I await Jan Egeland’s comments with interest. I am little curious to see whether the first report by Anna Tabaijuka was the UN’s attempt to play the heavyweight. Mugabe of course responded by calling their bluff and continuing with the evictions. Is the UN going to continue playing it tough again, or will they adopt a softly softly approach? We’ve all seen that the South African engagement in Zimbabwe’s affairs – so-called quiet diplomacy – also results in a ‘loss of influence’; it has absolutely no positive benefits for the people of our country at all! Mugabe is unlikely to change, and I’m curious to see the extent to which the UN is prepared to dance to his tune.
