Grim Reaper stalks Zimbabwe as famine and disease abound

The political crisis has deepened and as Business Day newspaper of Johannesburg concedes, “This is why we concur with SA’s African National Congress president, Jacob Zuma, that Africa and the world must take drastic action soon to reverse Zimbabwe’s slide into anarchy. Inaction will be the continent’s and Zimbabwe’s greatest undoing. Africa cannot continue tolerating rapacious, intolerant and oppressive tyrants.” So true.

Neighboring countries such as Botswana have “upped the ante in its intensifying diplomatic row with Zimbabwe by urging regional leaders to squeeze President Robert Mugabe out of power to end the worsening political and economic crisis,” reports Business Day.

Sadly for too long the South African government has maintained a misguided “African solidarity” with the regime in Harare.

Though the United States and the European Union remain committed to democratic political change and humanitarian assistance for Zimbabwe, the real force for change rests with neighboring South Africa. Indeed with more than a million of its refugees in South Africa, and with a spiraling humanitarian and a deepening political crisis, Zimbabwe poses a dangerous destabilizing force for all southern Africa.

While South Africa has mediated much of the political power sharing process, the Pretoria government could with the flick of a feather tip the scales. Given the humanitarian stakes, it must consider doing so.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. jjmcolumn@att.net

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