Tensions between Australia and Zimbabwe are reaching unprecedented heights as the Aussies are unexpectedly taking global leadership in isolating Robert Mugabe's thugocracy. First Australia decided to cancel its cricket tour in Zimbabwe in September. Now the Australian government has announced that it is going to fund Mugabe's opponents to the tune of $18 million Australian, or $15 million US.
Obviously this will give Mugabe the opportunity to vent his spleen against his favorite anachronistic bugaboo, the imperialist west, but that should not deter other countries from following suit. Mugabe will, after all, invoke the imperialist past to deflect even the most tepid of criticism. Already Zimbabwe's Information and Publicity Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu has fumed that Austraian prime Minister John Howard “must learn to accept that Zimbabwe is a sovereign state … not a British colony.” But Zimbabwe's fulminations should by now be of no moment. Mugabe's ruthlessnes long ago meant that his disdain for human rights cast his sovereignty in serious dubt. If foreign intervention comes, Mugabe has nothing but his megalomania to blame.
