The American president-elect Barack Obama has urged the United Nations and African leaders in particular to pile pressure on Robert Mugabe to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis. He singled out South Africa as one country that needs to apply more pressure on Mugabe.He also called on African nations to condemn the extra-ordinary state-sponsored violence that has been taking place against the citizens of Zimbabwe by that country’s security forces and ruling party militias.
And frankly they have been quiet for far too long and allowed Mugabe to engage in this sort of anti-colonial rhetoric that is used to distract from his own profound failures as a leader, said Obama recently.
Mugabe has constantly accused Britain of wanting to re-colonise Zimbabwe and the west in general of racism because of its criticism of his violent, chaotic and corrupt land distribution programme.
Having an African-American in the White House changes everything.
Since his election, Obama has said he intends to improve America’s moral stature by such actions as closing Guantanamo Bay and pulling US troops out of Iraq.
We take heart from these early indications that the new US administration will actively seek the moral high ground. Such a stance must surely compel them to do something more about the Zimbabwean tragedy.
For one man to continue to hold a nation to ransom and be responsible for the preventable deaths of thousands every week must surely rank high on Obama’s agenda as immoral.
The world’s most powerful leader is also on record as having said: What’s happening in Zimbabwe is tragic. This is a country that used to be the bread-basket of Africa. Mugabe has run the economy into the ground. He has perpetrated extraordinary violence against his own people.
This man is obviously on the ball.
Unfortunately none of the present SADC leaders, apart from President Ian Khama of Botswana, appear to have the same grasp of the reality on their doorsteps.
Word:
Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the LORD have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it. – Ezekiel 36;36