Thabo Mbeki - perpetrator or accessory?

Justice Malala:

Mbeki must face charges of crimes against humanity for continuing to aid and abet Mugabe

Zimbabwe is now absolutely and totally a wreck: an economic farce and a political tragedy.

Two issues are left for consideration: who is responsible for bringing Zimbabwe to this pass, and what is the most effective way of solving its problems.

I leave the question of culpability for the tragedy that is Zimbabwe with President Thabo Mbeki, a man who is brilliant at speeches.

Here is an excerpt from a speech Mbeki made in Kigali, Rwanda, in April 2004. In it, he asked some tough questions, 10 years after the genocide that raged in that country while the world stood by and watched.

“What was it that gave the leaders and commanders of the genocidaires the murderous courage to direct and preside over so gruesome a crime?” Mbeki asked. “What did we, as Africans, do to stop the slaughter? If we did nothing, why did we do nothing?”

“Have all the guilty been identified, whatever their contribution to the genocide?

“Have the necessary lessons been learnt? What are those lessons? Who has learnt them? What have these people done with the knowledge they acquired?

“Was it enough merely to say ‘sorry’ on the part of those who had the humility, courage and honesty to say ‘sorry’? And what of those who are perhaps too arrogant to utter this simple word?

“Every day, the severed heads and skeletons stored at the sites of the massacres point an accusing finger at all of us who did not do what we should have done to stop the murderous rampage. Every day they remind us that we cannot merely say the Rwanda genocide occurred and treat it just as an historical episode that has passed.”

Very strong words indeed. Very soon, we must ask who stood by while Tendai Biti, the secretary- general of the Movement for Democratic Change, was being tortured in Zimbabwe’s jails.

We will have to ask who, among those who seek “African solutions for African problems”, blocked UN resolutions on Zimbabwe while Mugabe murdered his own people.

The chief among those who are guilty is Mbeki, a man who, for nine years, has not only looked away from the sheer horror of Zimbabwe but has now taken to aiding and abetting Mugabe at every turn.

Mbeki escaped arrest for his pig- headed denialism about the horror of HIV-Aids but he should not be allowed to get away with this one.

Mbeki should be charged with crimes against humanity for his aiding of Mugabe. He should be tried, in the fine courts of this country, or at the International Court for Human Rights, side by side with Mugabe.

Resolutions should be applied to Zimbabwe and enforced through all-encompassing sanctions against Zimbabwe. When the Mugabe regime feels the pain , it will agree to negotiate properly and in good faith, not while it arrests, maims and kills members of the opposition.

There is no hope of a solution in Mbeki’s insistence on a government of national unity while Mugabe holds the whip hand.

Mbeki’s calls are just more of the same — aiding and abetting a dictator.