In print | Published April 24, 2008

In recent weeks, The Phoenix, like many other publications and, most notably, the American government, has been silent on the subject of the saga of Zimbabwe’s elections. The reasons have been myriad: African leaders, such as South African president Thabo Mbeki have demanded African autonomy in dealing with Zimbabwe; the legal process in Zimbabwe seemed to be resolving the issue on its own; and most crucially, not enough was known about what was actually happening in Zimbabwe to form an educated position on the issue. In light of post-electoral violence on the part of the ruling Zanu-PF party (led by catastrophic president Robert Mugabe), and particularly with the looming threat of a massive sale of arms to Zimbabwe by the Chinese government, the time to end that silence has come.

Most immediately, the United States needs to take an active role in addressing what is arguably the most pressing issue to security in southern Africa: the impending sale of Chinese weapons to the Zanu-PF-led government of Zimbabwe. Carrying three million rounds of live ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds, the contents of the ship An Yue Jiang are an arsenal for what Zimbabwean church leaders have called “a potential genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and elsewhere.” With the State Department offering nothing more than “discouragement” in regards to the Chinese sale of arms, a crisis of massive proportions is idling off the coast of South Africa, waiting to dock. While the Zanu-PF-affiliated Zimbabwe justice minister Patrick Chinamasa claims that he doesn’t “understand all this hullabaloo about a lone ship,” Genocide Watch, Amnesty International and opposition party leaders in Zimbabwe are unanimous in their disagreement. The behavior of the Chinese government is reckless and immoral, but the United States’ failure to condemn their actions has made a bad situation even worse.

Second, the world needs to accept that the reality that allowing the African Union and Mr. Mbeki to handle this issue independently has failed. No one can deny that centuries of European imperial domination of Africa has been unimaginably detrimental. None but the most belligerently racist would suggest a return to the status quo of the nineteenth century, wherein the concept of African autonomy was anathema. The European rape of Africa was unequivocally wrong. But under no circumstance should the ideal of democratic autonomy take precedence over the fundamental sanctity of human life.

The problem in Zimbabwe is that the de facto African Union delegate supervising the country’s elections, Thabo Mbeki, is deluded about the actual state of affairs in the region. After meeting with Robert Mugabe last Saturday, he remarked that there is “no crisis” in Zimbabwe. With unconfirmed reports of 3,000 individuals displaced, 500 injured and at least 10 dead as a result of post-election violence, there is little room for international disagreement: Mr. Mbeki is flat-out wrong.

What, then, is the solution? First, the call of Zimbabwean opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirai for Mr. Mbeki to be “relieved of his duties” as mediator needs to be heeded. In his stead, Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa should be appointed by the AU to oversee the contentious recount currently taking place.

Second, the “orgy of violence” which human rights groups claim has been unleashed by Mr. Mugabe and his political party needs to be stemmed by any means possible. In the short term, the United States needs to lead the charge in the United Nations to send peacekeeping troops into Zimbabwe to end active conflicts and keep the Zimbabwean people from being brutally attacked for casting opposition ballots. In the longer term, however, justice needs to be brought to Zimbabwe if the African Union is unable to create it autonomously.

Mr. Tsvangirai, ostensibly the Zimbabwean president-elect (but denied this title by the autocratic Mugabe), has demanded a United Nations crimes court, similar to those in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The world cannot let Mr. Tsvangirai’s requests fall on deaf ears. The time of Western domination in Africa is over. But so, too, is the time for Western apathy.

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