What to do with Zimbabwe and Africa

[loki]

I was watching the news last night and it just reinforced my idea that we live in pretty messed up times. What with attrocities in Myanmar still fresh in the memory, the events in Zimbabwe over the past few days it begs the question what more should the international community do to ease the suffering of the people in Zimbabwe.

What really disappointed me was the great opportunity for the other African Leaders had to condemn Mugabe and his regime yesterday. Yet with the exception of the Egyptian leader, all refused to comment or let alone condemn him.

So should the international community sit here and wait for the regime to implode. Tougher economic sancations only serve to hurt the people even more. Playing Devils advocate the other African Nations do more to help their own situation by condeming Mugabe as should the Asian nations do with Myanmar etc. Although the use of force is an option, I dont think any of the western nations would have an appetite for a Guerrila war in Central Africa as that could provoke the collapse of infra structure in an already fragile Zimbabwe and ultimately another humanitarian crisis.

We seem to be damend if we do and damned if we don't

[leowyatt]

To be honest the opportunity presented itself when Mugabe became the only candidate running. Someone (I don't know who) needed to step in and tell Mugabe "sorry but you've lost, on your bike!"

[PvtPyle]

If there was oil in Zim, the West would've moved him out years ago, by force if required. As it is, it has gold deposits that we're not interested in, so we quietly advocate Mugabe's dictatorial regime simply by failing to act.

[Mark]

Sanctions won't work. Mugabe couldn't give a toss about his people and he has the resources to make any sanctions mean precisely squat to him. Avoid.

Better, convince the South Africans to speed up their election timetable and send Thabo Mbeki on his way. He's already a lame duck president anyway. With him gone, there's a lot better chance the next guy could make Mugabe's position untenable. Job done.

[Jonny69]

Their economy is wrecked. We just inherited a client from the SA office and they are in trouble because the database can't handle numbers in the order of quadrillions. One quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (24 zeroes)

Their inflation rate is somewhere in the order of 10.5 million%. Yes you read that right. Put into perspective your money devalues significantly in the time it takes you to take it out your pocket and give it to the man in the shop.

[Garp]

One thing that baffles me is that we have more legal right to do stuff with Zimbabwe than we did Iraq. Zimbabwe is still a member of the British Commonwealth, so the Queen should really have a duty towards the members of the country to ensure they have a proper government and no fear of persecution. That we've sat back for so many years and just let the fiasco continue is almost unforgivable. Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of Africa, but mismanagement has turned it into such a disaster area, instead of the veritable paradise it could be. With the threats on the global economy of famines and stuff having Zimbabwe back to full production would do an awful lot of good.

[Mark]

Wrong in several ways. Firstly, even when Zimbabwe was part of the Commonwealth the Queen would have had as much right to 'interfere' as you or I. They could certainly suggest, even persuade, but not interfere. The most that they could do was to kick Zimbabwe out, and in that respect Zimbabwe jumped before they were pushed. Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth in 2003.