Avoiding the rotten smell of despair and misery in the room at Lisbon
The National Post has an article today that begins with these sentences:
At 83, Robert Mugabe has been called many things. Now Zimbabwe’s dictatorial President is about to become a world-class party-pooper.
Why? Because his presence at the EU/AU Summit in Portugal threatens to derail the planned agenda:
Portugal, the host, says it wants the first European-African summit in seven years to strike a new strategic partnership that will focus on issues such as counterterrorism, illegal immigration, trade, debt relief, climate change and international peacekeeping.
Another article in the South African Independent Online says that
African leaders do not want Zimbabwe to be on the agenda of the summit, the first between the two continents in seven years, and some have threatened to withdraw if it is.
It doesn’t sound to me like they’ll be met with much resistance from the Portuguese host:
“The violation of human rights and the lack of democratic freedoms in Zimbabwe, unacceptable as this situation may be, must not be allowed to interfere with relations between the two continents,” Jose Manuel Barroso, the EU President said yesterday.
“This is not — repeat, not — an EU-Zimbabwe summit, but an EU-Africa summit, with an ambitious agenda on issues as important as peace and security, climate change, development aid, migration and governance.”
Approximately 700,000 Zimbabweans were devastatingly affected by Operation Murambatsvina; an estimated 30,000 murdered during the Gukurahundi; millions plunged into poverty and despair by economic corruption and mismanagement; and thousands tortured, harassed and victimised by Mugabe’s thugs. I would have thought this a ‘peace and security’ issue, but apparently not.
The majority of people in Zimbabwe are too poor to eat, so I guess we have one small consolation, and that is they won’t know the full extent of their abandonment by the regional leaders and potentially the European community as a whole.
People who can’t eat, can’t afford satellite TV subscriptions; nor can they afford computers that connect to the Internet. Among everything else, Mugabe has suppressed freedom of speech and destroyed the free press in Zimbabwe. So people will struggle through another day of hardship and poverty in Zimbabwe, while the leaders meet and pretend nothing is too bad in Zimbabwe.
This is one distasteful bit of news I hope Zimbabweans don’t hear about; life is hard enough as it is.
December 6th, 2007 21:02
Whether the president attends the summit or not, I think Zimbabweans we have suffered too much. Even the lucky ones who managed to get out of the country. Imagine how many hours we have to work to feed ourselves and the families back home.
I think these leaders should be talking about the economic and humantarian crisis in Zimbabwe. My family in Harare have been without electricity for two weeks now.
December 7th, 2007 01:44
This is ridiculous.
December 7th, 2007 18:48
“Peace in our time” - Neville Chamberlain
“This is not - repeat not- an EU-Zimbabwe summit, but an EU-Africa summit, with an ambitious agenda on issues as important as peace and security, climate change, development aid, migration and governance.” Jose Manuel Barroso
I’m a little curious, Jose - which issues in your list don’t apply to Zimbabwe?
Peace and security - aren’t the refugees to other countries causing issues in the countries they arrive in, including a rise in the crime rate?
Migration - see above
Development aid - I think Zimbabwe could use some of that…
Governance - oh, yeah, they need to talk about that in a big, big way
Climate change… hmmm… Cathy Buckle’s blog seems to imply the weather is nice there. Maybe if there were a melting glacier and a dead polar bear Jose would develop a clue.
I’m becoming more convinced that Mr. Mugabe has something on the other African leaders - a “say something bad about me and these pictures go to the press” type thing, or “critizize my programs, and I’ll release the following information on ____ in your country.”
How else do you explain what seems to be a tacit agreement of “we will not talk about Zimbabwe to Mr. Mugabe”