NVDL: I believe we have reason to fear for the future of South Africa based on the leadership's silent endorsement of the dictator next door. In other words, our government supports a political leader and being chums with a human rights abuser is far more a priority - for them - than helping thousands of stricken citizens.
If this is the attitude of the ANC to its neighbour, why ought we expect anything else right here? And the evidence is already clearly demonstrable - a passe attitude to crime, to AIDS, to the water and electricity crisis, even to the own internal crisis of the ruling party. It seems to be a regime based on denialism, and protecting one's position, one's pocket at all cost. Well, no matter the cost to others. COPE's emergence could not have come at a more opportune moment.
Brown said the crisis in Zimbabwe was now "international" and that he hoped the United Nations Security Council would meet urgently to consider the situation.
Brown's comments came amid mounting pressure from around the world with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying it was "well past time for Robert Mugabe to leave" and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband calling the Zimbabwean government a "rogue" regime.
"This is now an international rather than a national emergency," Brown said in a statement released by his Downing Street office.
"International because disease crosses borders. International because the systems of government in Zimbabwe are now broken. There is no state capable or willing of protecting its people.
"International because -- not least in the week of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- we must stand together to defend human rights and democracy, to say firmly to Mugabe that enough is enough."
|
No comments:
Post a Comment