I have to take a moment to point out how much I disagree with the Slate article by Christopher Hitchens on former South African President Nelson Mandela and Zimbabwe. Hitchens attacks President Mandela for not speaking out on Zimbabwe:
"By his silence about what is happening in Zimbabwe, Mandela is making himself complicit in the pillage and murder of an entire nation, as well as the strangulation of an important African democracyIt will be something of a tragedy if he ends his career on a note of such squalid compromise."
The problem with that position is that it is dead wrong, something that anyone who spends a little time researching the subject would understand. Here are two efforts/comments by President Mandela that illustrate his concern for Zimbabwe over the 7+ years of this crisis.
1. Monday May 8, 2000, the Namibian paper picks up comments from President Mandela in Johannesburg in which he notes that some African leaders had liberated their countries and then overstayed their welcome. He noted in his comments that individuals like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Pompeii, and Adolf Hitler had also been brought down by the ordinary masses. “They want to die in power because they have committed crimes. The tyrant of the day can be destroyed by you and I." When asked whether he was talking about Mugabe, Mandela stated: “Everybody here knows who I am talking about”.
2. The Zimbabwe Independent paper noted in 2007 that President Mandela wrote and urged Mugabe to leave office before he was hounded like Chilean dictator Pinochet – Mugabe did not respond. President Mandela then sought to work with his peers in "The Elders" to engage Mugabe, former Secretary General Annan was nominated to act as their emissary, again without success. The Independent also cites sources noting that "The Elders" are not giving up.
That last comment is perhaps the most interesting. Can we honestly say the same for the U.K. and the U.S.? Have these two permanent members of the UN Security Council done all that they can do on Zimbabwe? I would submit that they have not.
Hitchens and others with a platform to raise the issue of Zimbabwe should consider focusing some of their attention on these two countries; we need them to take the Zimbabwe situation seriously and to act. There are policy options available to the international community; perhaps a good place to start is for the U.S. and the U.K to secure a consensus UN Security Council referral of the Zimbabwe situation to the International Criminal Court.
