Tinus le Roux, News24 User
The Zimbabwean tragedy is like a slow motion drama, started a couple of years ago by Robert Mugabe trying to cling to power at the cost of his country, his people and the Southern African region.
With the almost total destruction of the once prestigious African country through the hardship, hunger and death of its people, now suddenly neighbouring countries admit there is a problem that should be solved?
Why have the African leaders take such a long time to eventually admit the obvious? Why did the African leaders not publicly oppose Mugabe although the violations of human rights were common knowledge?
What is difficult for me to understand is the ANC government's attitude on Mugabe the past years: The ANC came to power on the base of human rights principles such as democracy and anti-racism.
Everyone knew long ago that Mugabe's government grossly violates these issues e.g. land grabs, racism, forced resettlement of thousands of urbanised people, freedom of speech and press taken away, etc.
Why did the ANC government not publically condemn these violations although these were the exact issues they struggled for? Two faced?
I don't know the answers to these mysteries but the African leaders who supported Mugabe with his atrocities by means of silence are co-responsible for the tragedy of what is now happening to the people of Zimbabwe, their blood is on these leader's hands as well.
The African leaders knew what was happening, the press started with warnings half a decade ago, but they did nothing that made any difference!
And now the most bizarre of all, in Mugabe's desperate quest to stay in power he blamed the West in the most blatant way as the responsible party for the failure of Zimbabwe. Now, it is expected from the West again to help out to relieve the suffering of people.
How can you hit someone and the next moment asks him for help? Hopefully this sad episode of Zimbabwe has a clear lesson and message to African leaders: Don't do land grabs, stop living in the past, stop blaming the West for things that go wrong in your country, do not try to win votes and stay in power by any means? this will cause destruction!
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Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.