News coming from Zimbabwe as reported by BBC's Panorama in Mugabe's Bloody Diamonds and Syria highlights the case of yet another appalling foreign policy by the democracy-loving West. This seems to be happening on a regular basis and outrageously dividing world opinion. Surely this raises some fundamental questions.
Human rights violations are and will always remain a universal evil. Campaigners are reporting sky-rocketing numbers of incidences of victims of torture and death in both countries. Such a humanitarian crisis in which millions of people are facing threats while enduring such dreadful forms of brutality from their repressive regimes could naturally call for the international community to intervene and safeguard people's lives. Sadly those musclemen are saying, albeit in different ways, any resolution is unlikely despite expressing 'sadness and concern'.
When NATO and its allies convinced the 15 member Security Council in recent months to enforce the UN charter's resolution 1973, to protect the Libyan people, I had high hopes that this just and necessary intervention alone would put a swift end to the unrest and dispose of Gaddafi. I also believed that the warning shots have been sent to other despots such as Robert Mugabe and Bashar al-Assad. I misplaced my judgement.
How disappointing therefore to find that the UN imposed a no-fly zone to protect Libyans, issued an international arrest warrant to the regime but only stand by and witness Mugabe and Assad's bloody purges and mass imprisonment of political opponents in Zimbabwe and Syria respectively? These people matter to the world, just as the world matters to them. I just wonder why China and Russia abstain and laugh when these resolutions are voted on. Such misplaced sentiments betray both those repressed by these regimes and world expectations.
Some people have been suggesting that criminal indictments are desirable , that this would chain these regime's appetite for pernicious oppression. The commitment to international justice is every nation's responsibility, but it seems to me that there are rules for some despots and different rules for others. Both Robert Mugabe and Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, committed acts of genocides of equal magnitude in the 1980's. More blood was shed in the DRC, Rwanda and Sri Lanka among others. Yowere Museveni in Uganda, Equatorial Guinea dictator Teodoro Obiang and Amar Bongo all have appalling human rights records. But the EU and US shower them with praise whilst giving them a great deal of aid money. General Pinochet was never brought to justice despite his known record of crimes against humanity in Chile for decades until his death in 2006. Outstanding warrants of arrest on Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Gaddafi issued by the ICC for war crimes cannot even be implemented and they remain at large. What message does this send to others who commit similar human rights violations? In Lebanon a similar warrant backed by the US six years after the killing of the then premier, Rafiq Hariri, by Hizbollah cannot be enforced. The reason being that it threatens unity in the country and Lebanon will have to contribute financially and by providing judges to sit alongside those at The Hague. What nonsense! These are just a few best known cases where the UN and the West have either failed in view of world expectations or simply turned a blind eye.
It is rather sad that because the ICC was set up in 2002, it cannot investigate cases of human rights violations committed before that and yet the UN charter on torture has been in place since 1948.
If Nazi war criminals were put on trial, why can't it be done with Mugabe or Assad? Indeed following France's example might be worthwhile. They are currently in the process of sending to Panama former military leader Manuel Noriega for atrocities backdating to the 80's, a move that Mugabe has resisted for a long time. He is harboring an Ethiopian fugitive in Harare and his soon to be close ally Muammar Gaddafi. Similar efforts of bringing people to account in Egypt, Haiti and Tunisia following the fall of their repressive leaders are rather more feasible.
Many appear to have forgotten however that history has shown that some of these ruthless despots will always be recycled and labels redrawn to paint a 'responsible statesman' and friendly tyrant. One does not require a precise methodology to agree that (in our own case) Mugabe's bloody diamonds are giving him an upper hand and a new image despite his awful human rights record. Once these strategic resources are in place it doesn't surprise to see why Beijin, Sepp Blatter and the Kremlin are embracing such regimes.
My view of the Anglo-French is illustrated by their 20th century Middle Eastern errors. Since Woodrow Wilson, his overseas envoy Colonel House warned that they risk making the region a breeding place for future wars while in the words of Maurice Hankey, the British were after 'undisputed control of the greatest amount of petroleum that they can'. Both are still pursuing the ends without any worry of the consequences and they are not alone. What is this that we are seeing today, nearly a century later if it's not hypocrisy and an insult to humanity?
Even at this stage where there may be no obvious strategic interest in Zimbabwe, many Western countries fear that an identical use of force in Syria to the one that hit Iraq and Libya would stir a hullabaloo across the Arab world. But it was not the Arab league that both despised and campaigned for an assault on Gaddafi alongside NATO? Syria may be a natural ally of Iran and the backbone of militant Hizbollah in Lebanon and Gaza's Hamas but that does not mean that Bashar al-Assad's regime can do as it pleases and get away with ferocious genocide. Surely the US can sort its economic interests with Israel in other ways rather than viewing the region in black and white. Crucially, instead of propping up despots in Africa and Middle East in the name of 'be careful what you wish for', it should provide all the ingredients that enable these countries to establish the basis for an open and stable society.
Thomas Hobbes wrote in his famous political treatise, Leviathan, 'without the rule of law, the life of a man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"'. Therefore, the greatest call in such disintegration is that both Zimbabweans and Syrians need more international support and protection to return to normal life, constitutional reform and the rule of law. No one else can stand up to them and bury these evil regimes. It seems Robert Mugabe and Bashir al-Assad will kill until all the bullets are gone.
