Zimbabwe is the epicenter of UN ineffectiveness
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai chose the better part of valor and stepped aside Sunday. He cited the continuing violence promulgated by the Mugabe regime and the UN's inability to prevent it or protect his supporters.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was supposed to help negotiate a cessation of the violence and initiate talks aimed at forming a government of national unity. He apparently decided to sit on his hands instead amid threats from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

The UN hasn't even bothered to issue one of their trademark Sternly Worded Letters condeming the violence. Mugabe would undoubtedly laugh in their faces if they tried to deliver one anyway. For all their posturing the plain fact is that the UN in completely impotent. It's the epitome of bureaucratic gridlock, overloaded with representatives of dictators large and small. Their main interest seems to be the denunciation of anything done by the USA or Israel, and quiet acquiescence to the machinations of genocidal maniacs. Like Zinbabwe, the abominable situation in Darfur is entirely the fault of UN equivocation.

How else but incompetence or ineffectiveness on an unprecedented scale can explain why Mugabe was an honored guest at the recent UN Food Security Summit meeting in Rome. The man who is starving his people to death dined on quail and cavier with the striped pants set and nobody batted an eye. It was all so diplomatically proper. Where were all the "activists" who continually bloviate about arresting George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld for "war crimes"? A real criminal, the embodiment of total evil, got a free pass from the UN, the EU, and all those NGOs who repeatedly hurl invective at the US over absurdly minor issues.

Usually whenever there is a sham of an election going on we can count on Jimmy Carter to lend his aura of legitimacy to the entrenched kleptocrat. Not this time. Perhaps even he is finally embarrased enough by the antics of his protege Mugabe. In what he considered to be one of his foreign policy successes he allowed UN Ambassador Andrew Young to strongarm the legitimately elected government into ceding power to Mugabe in 1980. Mugabe promptly began slaughtering his citizenry. When Carter stood up to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 he chose not to mention the ongoing butchery in Zimbabwe during his acceptance speech. No surprise there; Carter has a habit of conveniently neglecting to recognize the adverse consequences of his ineptitude.

The end result of Mr. Tsvangirai's withdrawal will be the "landslide" re-election of Mugabe to another 5 year term. Zimbabweans by the millions will continue to starve. The world will ignore their plight. And the UN will avert their eyes lest they have to actually do something about it. Ban Ki Moon and his coterie of diplomatic denizens ought to be ashamed of themselves. Instead they'll just shrug their shoulders and whisper "c'est la vie".

Posted at 16:33 by Chris   [/rants]   | | | Email | del.icio.us | Digg | Stumble It! | Reddit | Link