30 years ago John Howard opposed sanctions against the Apartheid regime, stating: "Sanctions will inevitably hurt the poor blacks in South Africa more than any other section of the South African population."
Just yesterday the same man who supported the Springbok tours of Australia and New Zealand, banned the Australian cricket team from touring Zimbabwe. Ordinary Zimbabweans who work in hotels, at sporting grounds and various other parts of Zim's struggling tourist industry will miss out. Instead Australia will pay a fine, to the Zimbabwean government, so Robert Mugabe can build a new palace or whatever the hell he wants. This is the same Australian cricket team that has toured:
Pakistan
Apartheid South Africa in 1970 (under a Liberal Party government)
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
6 comments:
Interesting isn't it? Mugabe is a nut job - no doubt about that. But it's funny that the first time Howard has ever agreed sanctions have ever worked is for a black dude with the world's dodgiest mo.
A little post on the same topic and trackback to this post...
Just because Howard has been inconsistent doesn't mean this time it's wrong for him to support sanctions. Agree though that the dramatic inconsistencies reveal how much this was influenced by practical politics and public opinion rather than serious moral consideration.
it is wrong, there is no unified opposition to mugabe. the mdc is a mess of arguing factions with no overarching position re: mugabe. this isn't the same situation as sa where sanctions actually helped the anc and forced the apartheid govt. to negotiate. given that the possibilty still exists for the mdc to unseat mugabe at the polls, through the courts etc. (which wasn't the case in sa), mugabe will simply blame the mdc for all of zim's problems and carry on as before. if anyone thinks sanctions will force mugabe to step down they're dead wrong. if they think it'll make him negotiate with the mdc, they're likewise wrong. mugabe has overwhelming public support, even now. this is something the media are reluctant to discuss.
secondly when sanctions kill off what's left of zim's economy it will be my family and my loved ones who will have to deal with even more zimbabwean refugees fleeing across the border looking for jobs that don't exist. there is already incredible social and economic pressure on zim's neighbours from the hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding across its borders. there are very real, sometimes terminally so, consequences to political opinions.
this aspect to the crisis makes me uniquely annoyed when halfwits like howard and downer argue that a region that isn't even 15 years out of 40 years of constant war should just start another one with mugabe so that people who're perfectly happy with SBY, the chinese govt. etc can sleep a little better at night.
lastly as the son of a one time political exile i disagree in the strongest terms at the idea of punishing the children of zim's govt. for their parents' politics. it is immoral to even identify them, given the fact that no one knows how they feel politically. for all we know studying here might give them good ideas to take home. ideas that might one day grow into policy. i went to school with a couple of those people and people want them deported to hurt their parents? i do not think that supporters of such an idea have thought it through.
i would never agree with the idea that john howard's progeny should suffer because i don't agree with his politics and he is directly culpable for killing hundreds of thousands of iraqis. to be perfectly honest that crikey post makes me feel rather ill.
But does Z's economy even exist? They're trapped in hyper inflation where soon the value of the piece of paper itself will be worth more than the currency valuation it's on. Mugabe has run the agriculture sector into the ground and has done monstrous things to the people. Are you sure he has political support from the populace at large? What's the solution? The last time something like this happened was amin, and it took Tanzania to go in and boot him. Mind you Amin was 58 million times worse than Mugabe.
What's the solution? Wait until he's dead? How can Mugabe be encouraged to go or at least reform? I know white settlement was an issue given they held the prime land and grew mostly cash crops. But in the last 5 years Z's gone from exporter to mass importer. And doesn't 1/3 of the pop already live in SA and other states?
Mugabe may have been the hero of the Rhodesian war. But his time has passed. How then the transition.
I confess my knowledge of African affairs is limited.
1) mugabe steamrollered the opposition at the last election. yes the result was fair, like it or not. if that election is a good reason for sanctions and global shunning then the 2000 us elections should be held in a similar light. specifically i'll point out the fact that the opposition controls 41 of 120 seats and won 39.5% of the popular vote. zanu-pf members lost seats and opposition members actually gained some. zimbabwe's democracy is still functioning despite ridiculous claims of mugabe being an autocrat.
2) zim's economy while crippled isn't fatally so. most people are ignorant of the fact that most zimbaweans have been poor forever, there wasn't some happy clappy pre-mugabe land which has segued into the zim of today. speculating about whether to push millions of people over a cliff because, what the hell, they're nearly over it is quite wrong.
3) you shouldn't be asking me for a solution when you don't know that zimbabwe has been having elections, elections with the real potential for change. you need to understand that zim's judiciary is still independent and has ruled against the government several times. your attitude is like someone who doesn't know the first thing about australia looking at the polls, seeing howard's been around for decades and that he's universally hated. they'd be pretty silly to conclude that howard's been around for ages against the wishes of the people and he cheated in a few elections (tony windsor) so we need chinese help to get rid of him and replace him with natasha stott-despoja. i mean come on. (not a word patrick)
4) don't even get me started on the import-export myth. zim has always been a net importer of food. it's biggest export has always been tobacco. +70% of arable land in zimbabwe is owned by the less than 1% white population. most of it is used to grow cash crops, like tobacco. you may have noticed, one cannot eat tobacco.
5) practical solutions would be:
to do whatever it takes to restart zim's economy, this does not include sanctions. starving people make for poor political activists.
avoiding engaging in egotistical clashes with mugabe because it plays well with the idiots back home (blair, howard).
taking a BACK SEAT to regional powers and actually deferring to their judgment of the situation. south africa doesn't tell us how to get along with china or indonesia so why should we tell them how to get along with mugabe? there are people still living who remember foreign interference in zim.
mugabe wasn't the hero of the zim independence movement, look up Abel Muzorewa. soundly defeated by mugabe because he was endorsed by thatcher.
i need to write shorter comments...
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