From a Nat Hentoff column:
"Blair's speech was the first — to my knowledge — where a world leader has so undiplomatically aimed at the dysfunction of the United Nations, which allows so much in human suffering around the world. He declared:
"We need to say clearly to United Nations members: 'If you engage in the systematic and gross abuse of human rights in defiance of the U.N. Charter, you cannot expect to enjoy the same privileges as those that conform to it.'"
That is not enough, however. Blair should go on to specify what "privileges" should be denied to the Sudan, China, Cuba, Syria, Libya and other U.N. members, such as Zimbabwe, who terrorize their own people.
Cathy Buckle, who has been chronicling the relentless brutality by which Robert Mugabe rules in Zimbabwe, wrote in her July 12 letter on Rense.com about a recent speech by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan:
"(He) said that democracy was not just about winning elections. He said it was about abiding by the rule of law, obeying your own courts and not oppressing and abusing your own people. Strong words from Kofi Annan, but they are just words because he and the U.N. have still not found the courage to actually name names, and should be utterly ashamed."
Along with hundreds of thousands of black Zimbabwean labor leaders, feminists, students, teachers, low-income farm workers made jobless by Mugabe's disastrous land "reforms" — and the many black citizens who have been tortured by his police — Buckle, a white who is as resilient as the black Zimbabweans are insistent on awakening the world's conscience, adds:
"People are dying in Zimbabwe, because of incompetent governance, at the hands of common criminals who hide behind their political affiliations. (They are dying) from no chemicals with which to treat water, and from just plain and simple empty bellies."
But Annan, the Nobel peace laureate, does not speak out. Meanwhile, President Bush appears to believe South African President Thabo Mbeki that "quiet diplomacy" is working. Buckle writes that a new law in Zimbabwe penalizes those "who criticize our president or make a gesture as he passes in a convoy of security vehicles."
The Washington Times reports that the African Union has rewarded Mugabe for his crimes against his people by making him deputy chairman of that organization.
These African heads of state have disgraced themselves.
They would do well to consider the words of Tony Blair to Congress: "We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind — black or white, Christian or not, left, right, or a million different — to be free ... free not to bend your knee to any man in fear."
But what does this mean in Zimbabwe?" |
