In building on the past 4 weeks of blogging… Mugabe is officially the remaining (or should i say “re-elected” if you could call it that) President of Zimbabwe. After what is called a “sham” presidential run-off of June 27th, Mugabe remains Zimbabwe’s leader through violence and a reign of terror. Seeing as how the U.S. and the U.N. could not provide Zimbabwe with a fair, legitimate election… Bush’s response to all of this is “the United States will prepare additional sanctions against President Robert Mugabe’s regime and will work for strong U.N. and international action to resolve the country’s ongoing crisis.”
He also said in a statement on June 28th, “The international community has condemned the Mugabe regime’s ruthless campaign of politically-motivated violence and intimidation with a strong and unified voice that makes clear that yesterday’s election was in no way free and fair.”
For the past several weeks I have been wondering when the U.S. and U.N. were going to step up their intervening with Zimbabwe’s election process and it just seems like it can’t happen. So many Zimbabweans were being killed and displaced that no matter what aid the U.S. gave it was not going to be able to stop he violence.
The U.S. post-illegitimate election plan is stated as follows: Bush has instructed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to “develop sanctions against this illegitimate Government of Zimbabwe and those who support it.” Bush added that the United States will be pushing for “strong action” by the United Nations “including an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and travel ban on regime officials,” and would also be working with Zimbabwe’s neighbors in the African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) to resolve the crisis.
I actually feel like the U.S. is dealing with this crisis a little better than i had previously thought because they are offering their full support of Zimbabwe if a legitamite government can be established by giving Zimbabwe developmental assistance, debt releif, and a sense of normalization with international financial institutions. The U.S. is also supporting the people of Zimbabwe right now by providing food assistance (because of the food shortage crisis… preivously blogged about) and AIDS treatment.
I think the U.S. is doing a decent job without being military forceful and starting another war and they are providing assistance right now and are ready and willing to provide assistance when they country can get a legitimate government.
Does anyone have any ideas of what else the U.S. could be doing without staring another war with another country??
July 8, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I agree that the US is dealing with the crisis in a productive manner without military support. I think for right now they should continue to not have military support, especially since Zimbabwe is not a direct security threat to us.