More on Zimbabwe

In my last post on Zimbabwe, I wrote about Mbeki's poor leadership. Now, the talk is all about sanctions - the West is pressing for sanctions. The African Union doesn't support sanctions on Zimbabwe, and I can't say that I blame them.

Sanctions are not as effective as you would think based on how often they are trotted out as the solution to a problem. Granted, they seem to have worked in Libya (eventually), and are playing a role in Iran and North Korea, but were ineffective in Cuba and Iraq (during Saddam). In the end, in a situation like Zimbabwe, sanctions are likely to hurt the people way more than the leaders. And as long as the government has a monopoly on power and are adept at winning illegitimate elections, there is little hope of the disgruntled people tossing their leaders out.

But this is the West's only option at the moment. Criticism of Mugabe form the West has little effect because he can just dismiss the comments by saying the word "colonialism". But the African Union has much more power. If they were to refuse to recognize Mugabe's election and then isolate him, that would likely be enough to force a change. So far, they haven't officially recognized his election, but they haven't called it illegitimate and asked for a re-vote, and they have called for power sharing. Calling for power sharing between a leader that used violence to stay in power, and a reformer who "lost the run-off" isn't a workable solution.

Many of course point to Kenya. Although there was much praise of the Kenyan agreement, it remains to be seen whether it will in fact work. Besides, in Kenya you had ethnic battles between the parties. That doesn't seem to be the driving factor in Zimbabwe. Removing Mugabe is unlikely to cause the sort of disruption that would have resulted in Kenya if one side was removed from power.

In the end, the African Union isn't willing to take the big steps necessary to make meaningful change. There are some leaders who want to (like Levi Mwanawasa in Zambia), but not enough. Instead, they try to placate people like Mugabe, who ruin their country and then refuse to stand for a legitimate election. It would be much easier for the international community, and the West in particular, to allow the African Union to manage their own affairs if they actually showed strength.