My OperaYou read it here first. Well, maybe...
Saturday, July 12, 2008 11:02:10 PM
Last month I blogged about a pair of refugees from Zimbabwe, one of whom explained that they thought the country needed help from the EU because "The Organisation of African Unity... would not intervene because they never did. The most they would do would be to send in soldiers to watch as Mugabe continued to persecute the population. The United Nations would talk a lot but would never intervene because countries like South Africa and China would block it".
Today he was proved right. South Africa, China, Libya, Vietnam, and Russia voted against the US/EU proposal that actions be taken against Mugabe's unelected regime. Their reasons for doing so, or at least, their real reasons for doing so, seem inexplicable. South Africa, as a nation, almost universally agrees with former president Mandella that they should be doing something to oust Mugabe, but for reasons unknown their government is choosing to ignore them. China has a record of refusing to vote for sanctions against oppressive/represive regimes, possibly because to support them would throw unwelcome light upon their own human rights transgressions. In Libya Gaddafi is a little annoyed that the aid he was promised after he 'declared peace' has not all been forthcoming, so maybe this was a revenge vote. Vietnam I can only assume was voting in support of China, but I'm at a loss as to why. And finally there's Russia, whose new president told Britain's Prime Minister Brown that they would vote with the US/EU, then didn't. An action I find to be the most perverse of all. The only explanation I can think of is that ex-president Putin stuck his oar in simply to get up George Bush's nose.
You'll notice that at no time did I suggest that any of these nations actually believed for a second they were doing the right thing. This is because I really don't believe that any of them do. In fact I think that thousands of people are going to suffer horribly whilst their nation is pushed irrevocably, and maybe even irreparably towards chaos for reasons that, by comparison, are totally trivial.
So what else is new?
Today he was proved right. South Africa, China, Libya, Vietnam, and Russia voted against the US/EU proposal that actions be taken against Mugabe's unelected regime. Their reasons for doing so, or at least, their real reasons for doing so, seem inexplicable. South Africa, as a nation, almost universally agrees with former president Mandella that they should be doing something to oust Mugabe, but for reasons unknown their government is choosing to ignore them. China has a record of refusing to vote for sanctions against oppressive/represive regimes, possibly because to support them would throw unwelcome light upon their own human rights transgressions. In Libya Gaddafi is a little annoyed that the aid he was promised after he 'declared peace' has not all been forthcoming, so maybe this was a revenge vote. Vietnam I can only assume was voting in support of China, but I'm at a loss as to why. And finally there's Russia, whose new president told Britain's Prime Minister Brown that they would vote with the US/EU, then didn't. An action I find to be the most perverse of all. The only explanation I can think of is that ex-president Putin stuck his oar in simply to get up George Bush's nose.
You'll notice that at no time did I suggest that any of these nations actually believed for a second they were doing the right thing. This is because I really don't believe that any of them do. In fact I think that thousands of people are going to suffer horribly whilst their nation is pushed irrevocably, and maybe even irreparably towards chaos for reasons that, by comparison, are totally trivial.
So what else is new?
Loiscakkleberrylane # Monday, July 14, 2008 1:31:37 AM
卓别林 greatsealion # Tuesday, July 15, 2008 1:09:23 AM
http://zimbabwe-image.blogspot.com/2008/07/zimbabwe-and-power-of-propaganda.html
Deke # Tuesday, July 15, 2008 7:35:07 PM
I don't care who is responsible, I don't care who's running the show, all I care about is people and other living creatures being ill-treated, and I don't care whether it's in the interests of capitalism (Which demonstrably doesn't work), or communism (Which equally demonstrably doesn't work), or any other ism in between.
I hate Mugabe because not only is he destroying his country and killing his people, he is also giving those who supported Ian Smith's regime fuel for saying "See? We were right."
And they are right. 'Native Zimbabweans' may have been second class citizens, but they were still better off than they are now living in 'freedom' under Mugabe, and when that happens there's definitely something wrong. Zimbabwe used to be "The breadbasket of Africa". Now it's a wasteland. Compare it to Cuba. Castro was equally hated by the US and subject to all the same dirty tricks that it is alledged Zimbabwe is now suffering from and more, yet the nation has prospered. Its people seem genuinely happy, something which can't be said of many of the nations of the Earth, and there's no denying that its population live longer than any other nation on the planet. Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed and its people have one of the shortest life expectancies of anywhere in the world. Mugabe presided over that, he should recognise his incompetence and hand over to the people who really won the election, and if he won't the rest of the world should do whatever they can to make him.