Thursday, April 24, 2008

Kudos to Mozambique, Angola and yes, South Africa (but not really)

I've been critical of South Africa, especially its president Mbeki, about their tacit support for Bobby Mugabe. Yet they reversed course and turned away the Chinese arms shipment and other southern african countries followed suite. The ship is headed back to China fully loaded.

While this is good, it's far from sufficient to stem the fraud and violence still being perpetrated in Zimbabwe by Mugabe and his people.

Incredibly, South Africa is now pushing a "unity government" where Mugabe and the M.D.C would somehow "share" power. This in an election where the votes have never even been reported? Where the incumbent presided over epic inflation, unemployment and out-migration?

Here's Jacob Zuma, head of South Africa's ruling ANC party:

Asked about a national unity government in Zimbabwe, Mr. Zuma said, “I don’t think it is premature because you are dealing with a situation where we are almost three weeks after the election and there has been no announcement of the results.”

Regional diplomacy had not resolved the crisis, he said, “so we have to say ‘what do we do?’ ”

“The natural thing is that there should be discussions,” he said. The call for a unity government “is not premature, it is actually appropriate at this time,” he said.

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