MUGABE AND AFRICAN LEADERS: WHO BELLS THE CAT

It has always been an axiom of faith that if you live in a glass house, you dare not throw stones at another man’s glass house; otherwise, he would retaliate and your house would be in tatters.  We are witnessing this in the cacophony of silence of African leaders with regards to what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe. 

It has always been an axiom of faith that if you live in a glass house, you dare not throw stones at another man’s glass house; otherwise, he would retaliate and your house would be in tatters.  We are witnessing this in the cacophony of silence of African leaders with regards to what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe. 

A few weeks ago, I was beside myself with laughter at the antics of the African Union when they rushed to send troops to the Comoros’ island of Anjouan, where a madman, Mr. Mohamed Bacar, had declared the island independent of the mainland since May 10, 2007.  Mr. Bacar is now cooling his heels in France, which surreptitiously air-lifted him out of the island in wake of the combined Comoros/AU forces that toppled him, and an interim administrator was appointed on March 31, 2008.  It is like my grandmother would say: a nursing mother would say hold this child for me let me teach this pregnant woman a lesson, when she fully knows that the pregnant woman wouldn’t be able to fight back.

It is like the antics that the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, pulled when Sao Tome and Principe was overthrown by a military in 2003.  He flew the then overthrown President Fradique de Menezes, who had taken refuge in Nigeria, and had him re-installed as the President.  We have yet to see the same zeal taken against the likes of Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast, Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, and now Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

The two powerful countries that you would have expected to take charge and use their authority for a smooth resolution of the impasse in Zimbabwe, have leaders who have recent unsavoury history.  The President of Nigeria, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, became the president of the country in an election that everybody condemned as fraudulent, using a mild term, and where the country’s electoral commission chairman had pulled the rabbit out of a hat and announced that he had won with 26.4 million votes, with the results still being counted.  While consciously and cautiously finding his way, still he has to be given credit for touting a rule of law administration, which obeys the law unlike his lawless predecessor who literally picked him and installed him the president.

President Mbeki, on the other hand, who has been touted as the man who should have the greatest influence on Mugabe, himself tried to manipulate himself to stay in power.  After disavowing a third-term, not that South Africans would have voted for it, Mbeki proceeded to try to control who would succeed him as president, by fighting Jacob Zuma for control of the ruling party, the ANC.

We can then see that these two people have no locus standi with Robert Mugabe.  He can have a hearty laugh at them if they try to point an accusing finger at him.  The reply would be like this, “My young friends, first remove the moat in your eyes before asking me to remove what is in mine.”

The so-called northern powers, Mubarak in Egypt and Ghadaffi in Libya are themselves dictatorial administrations. 

Not that Mugabe doesn’t have enough examples to nudge him out of office.  He has witnessed the recent graceful exit of Festus Mogae of Botswana, or that of former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano who won the Mo Ibrahim Prize for African Leadership. 

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