Too Brazen for Shame
Amazing how we hold out such hope for the good work of the United Nations; we trust that the good souls who must surely be among those others whose cynical embrace of hypocrisy has served to mark out the decision-making resulting in too many failures in humanity's attempts to right wrongs, are as affronted as we are by each of those insanely inane and confoundingly lunatic committee structures as we are. There was an interview this morning on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with Zimbabwe's Environment Minister, Francis Nheme.Perhaps some background. We do know from past experience the dismal failures that have greeted world expectations when countries such as Libya, a North African dictatorship of the first water, was selected to chair the United Nations Human Rights Commission years ago. As though the philosophical impossibility of marrying a noted human-rights-abusing country with a United Nations' sponsored commission looking into human rights across the globe might have slid past the scrutiny of intelligent and principled personnel at that august world body.
Seems not, though, the obvious stared them all in the face. And mostly it is because leadership of such UN-sponsored committees and the make-up of the committee members themselves is done on a revolving basis, to embrace all countries in every corner of the world. Since member-countries are diverse and over-represented by those very countries whose records on human rights are still evolving into civilized mores, they are capable of swinging votes any way they wish.
Now the United Nations has unblushingly announced that Zimbabwe has been selected to head the UN's commission on Sustainable Development. Remember Zimbabwe? And its highly respected, universally beloved president-for-life, Robert Mugabe? He's the one, remember, who had his minions stalk, harrass, and sometimes murder white farmers in Zimbabwe, finally throwing them off their productive farms for the ostensible purpose of dispersing the legally-purchased farmland to Zimbabwe's 'veterans'; friends and colleagues of the president.
The land-hungry 'veterans' took ownership of the land. The ousted farmers were fortunate to escape with their lives and their families' safety intact. The thousands of Zimbabweans whom these farms employed and gave gainful livelihoods to, were thrown out of employment. The farms were allowed to disintegrate, the fields to lie fallow, the crops absent. The result was a severe shortage of domestic agriculture providing food for the nation. That very nation whose abundant crops, thanks to the hard work of the white farm owners and their thousands of diligently capable black Zimbabwean workers, provided a plenitude of food for the nation, and ample for export as well, in the past.
This same paternalistically kind president, Robert Mugabe, took offence at the burgeoning presence of starving Zimbabweans, fleeing the wasted countryside for the urban centres, desperate for work and for food for their starving families. They were a visible nuisance and he wanted them gone. So he undertook "Operation Murambatsvina", a campaign to demolish tens of thousands of homes for the impoverished in the outlying shanties, along with their meagre small businesses, fearing they hosted the potential for political opposition to his dire dictatorship. Out of sight, out of mind, there to starve in the countryside.
Now Zimbabwe's currency is worthless, unemployment stands at 80%, inflation runs in the four figures, and while urban residents can still find the wherewithal to sustain life, the rural population is in dreadful straits, facing malnutrition, endemic privation and illnesses, and premature death. The country has massive debts that it cannot possibly repay. Its neighbours cannot be too happy about the state of affairs there, and the constant unrest. Even by African standards, Robert Mugabe's violent police-state treatment of his political adversaries must make his political counterparts in the region, shiver.
Yet they fear to raise his wrath. And South Africa, that country whose governance, philosophical thrust, and democratic aspirations held such great promise under Nelson Mandela, and Bishop Desmond Tutu, has continued to support the government of Zimbabwe, and more specifically Robert Mugabe. The dreadful result of Mugabe's land grab and subsequent delinquency in supporting the country's agriculture sector, his horrible treatment of desperately starving Zimbabweans, his violent opposition toward political challengers, hasn't seemed to have had much of an impact, ethically or morally on South Africa's current president. Who has been heard to muse about his own country attempting similar land seizures.
Yet here is the United Nations, steadfastly backing the most corrupt dictatorship conceivable, one that has beggared its geography, utterly laid waste to its economy, heedlessly starved its population, and violently silenced its critics. The promotion of sustainable development at the United Nations, that world body of great repute and trust, is placed into the capable hands of the government of Zimbabwe. The mind boggles. Yet, during the interview on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with Francis Nheme, there was no hesitation on his part to deny wrong-doing on the part of his country and his president. He felt personally quite complacent about Zimbabwe's capability to lead that committee.
And we are left gasping for the air of reason.
Labels: Political Realities, World News
posted by Pieface @ Monday, May 14, 2007
<< Home