Annan and Carter call for intervention in Zimbabwe

[oberliner]

Source: Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Southern African nations must intervene more decisively to end Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other prominent world figures said on Monday.

Describing Zimbabwe as close to a humanitarian disaster, Annan urged the Southern African Development Community's leaders to pressure President Robert Mugabe and the opposition MDC to break a deadlock blocking the formation of a unity government.

"SADC must bring its full weight to bear," Annan, flanked by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and human rights campaigner Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela, told reporters.

"I think it is clear that SADC should have done more."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081124/ts_nm/us_zimbabwe_politics;_ylt=AiD5NX30Q2gGVCIWYKR1PEus0NUE

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Something must be done - but what?

[WriteDown]

1. Intervention by who exactly? nt

[pampango]

2. Maybe it's a sign of foreign policy exhaustion (Bush and me, too), but it seems that brutal

dictators can become a fixture that is a part of "reality" and you can't do anything about it. A dictator in a small Third World country, whether it's Zimbabwe or Burma, can impoverish and imprison their people and enrich themselves and neither the left nor the right can get outraged to the point where this type of situation is deemed to be unacceptable.

Sanctions have been tried, but their economy is worse than a shambles and more sanctions would just hurt ordinary people even more. Diplomacy, spearheaded by South Africa, has accomplished nothing. No one wants to use military force and it may create more trouble than it solves, as we have seen elsewhere.

Perhaps President Obama will have the standing, the prestige and the bright ideas to shake loose guys like Mugabe.