Tsvangirai says Mbeki 'no longer fit' to be mediator

A long time ago there was a TV show called “It Takes a Thief”, the show (as I’ve been told since it was on before I was born) centered around a former jewel thief who now helped the authorities catch criminals. The logic was that a criminal knows how another criminal thinks.

So maybe that was the logic in inviting Zimbabwe’s current president Robert Mugabe to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization conference this week in Rome. The organizers of the conference thought that having a leader who destroyed his nation’s agricultural sector in a desperate bid to stay in power, leaving his people hungry and relying on foreign food aid programs to survive, could help other aid agencies understand how countries can let their own people starve. It’s the only explanation I can think of for inviting Mugabe – who is currently trying to engineer a coup to stay in power – to any international conference on food or any other topic.

Officials from the United States, European Union and Australia – just to name a few places – are outraged by Mugabe’s presence and are saying so in pretty blunt terms.

“Robert Mugabe turning up to a conference dealing with food security or food issues is, in my view, frankly obscene," was the word from Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, his nation’s representative at the conference.

Mugabe is expected to hang around at the conference until Friday.

Speaking of Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s would-be challenger, presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai has called out the Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa. Mbeki is suppose to be serving as a mediator for the ongoing political crisis in Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai said though that Mbeki’s idea of mediation is doing whatever Mugabe says.

Tsvangirai cited Mbeki’s blocking the MDC’s (Tsvangirai’s political party) request to the UN security council to investigate violent attacks on his party’s supporters after the first round of election as an example of Mbeki’s “lack of neutrality”. The last straw for Tsvangirai came when he saw Mbeki and Mugabe appearing on television saying there was “no crisis” in Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai is onto something. Leaders in southern Africa have shown an appalling lack of concern for Zimbabwe’s citizens and have been extremely reluctant to criticize Mugabe, even as his actions lead his country to destruction. Not only has Zimbabwe become dependent on foreign food aid because of Mugabe’s policies, but inflation in the country is now at an unbelievable 1,000,000%. One report I read recently said the amount of money it takes now to buy a single loaf of bread, a few years ago would have bought you several cars.

The other regional leaders though have held off calling for tough action against Mugabe because of his iconic status in the region as a fighter against colonialism. He was the one who led the fight that finally drove the British from Zimbabwe.

But really, does his status as a hero thirty years ago give him the right to stay in power now by whatever means necessary? So it’s bad for a colonial power to oppress Africans, but its okay if the leader is a native? I don’t really think this is what Mbeki and other regional leaders believe, but by not taking a harder line with Mugabe, it is the message they are sending.