Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Zimbabwe: 'The Fierce Urgency of Now'

(Source: NY Times)

Recall the ongoing controversy over Zimbabwe's March 29th presidential election:


Now recall the ongoing protests that have consumed what was suppose to be the 'celebratory' torch run for the Olympics being held in China this summer.

What do they have in common? Well, the vast majority of the protesters cite China's abusive relationship with Tibet as the motivating cause for their actions. In a close second is China's questionable relationship with the tyrannical Sudanese government and their aid to genocide. Both are noble causes. BUT, in both cases, the response is reactionary. Protesters have the opportunity to be proactive in their stand against the corrupt foreign policy dealing of the Chinese government.

As BBC World and Al Jazeera News are reporting that the standing Mugabe administration's oppression of the opposition and its supporters is teetering on genocide, the Chinese government is attempting to push through an arms shipment to the very same, oppressive Mugabe regime.

The New York Times Reports:

As protests intensified across southern Africa against the delivery of a shipment of Chinese-made arms to Zimbabwe, the Chinese government said Tuesday that the ship carrying the arms — owned by a large state-owned company, COSCO — may return to China because of problems delivering the goods.

South Africa’s High Court Friday barred transport of the ammunition, rockets and mortar bombs across South Africa from the port of Durban to landlocked Zimbabwe after an Anglican archbishop argued they were likely to be used to crush the Zimbabwean opposition following a disputed Mar. 29 election.

South Africa’s dock workers also said through their union they would refuse to unload the shipment, a call backed up by the country’s powerful coalition of trade unions. On Friday, the ship, An Yue Jiang, left Durban for the open seas and on Tuesday South Africa’s Ministry of Defense said it lay somewhere off Africa’s west coast.

It is important to note, the Chinese government has merely suspended the shipment of the arms because they could not physically transport them to landlocked Zimbabwe against the will of South Africa's High Court; they did not abort the arms transaction because of benign concerns of aiding an oppressive government in the untold killings of thousands.

To often we read about these cases AFTER the fact. Rwanda came and went. People said it all happened to fast for the international community to take notice. Sudan came. It was commonly referred to as "genocide in slow motion." Still, a lack luster response, at best, from the international community. Unrest in Zimbabwe is on the way (arguably, already here): how do WE (in the international community) want to feel when we look back on TODAY? Hopefully, on that fateful day in the future, we will not be subject to such regretful phrases as "could have, should have, and would have."

As Dr. King said in his famous 1967 anti-war sermon: "We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now."

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