Zimbabwe ( and the UK)

There is a fascinating discussion about the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe raging at the moment in the UK, between the Government�s Foreign and Home secretaries.

The Foreign secretary Jack Straw (Labour) has in the recent weeks spoken out on a few occasions against Mugabe�s dictatorship, and asked the African Union to take action against the brutality of the regime against its opponents. That there has been a vicious and murderous persecution of Mugabe�s political enemies, is in no doubt.
Now, it�s not surprising that a growing number of Zimbabweans flee their country and seek Asylum, many of them in the UK, due to the colonial links between the two countries.
Once in the UK, they have to apply for political asylum, and await the decisions of the Home office and the courts. One should think that regarding the current political climate in Zimbabwe, asylum seekers from that country shouldn�t have a problem to have their applications recognized.
But far from that, a number of them still have their claims refused. Once that happens, the UK government then has the right to deport them back to Zimbabwe, but is in the discretion of the Home office to determine manner and point of time.
One should think that at least the Home office wouldn�t send any refused asylum seekers back to Zimbabwe at the moment, as there is a distinct danger that they might be killed or imprisoned on arrival.
But far from that, the Home secretary Charles Clark (Labour) insists on his right to send people back and refuses a general temporary suspension of any deportations, although he made an exception in one particular case over the last few days.

In other words, the Home secretary is in principle happy to send people back to a country which his colleague, the Foreign secretary regards as a murderous dictatorial regime.
Confused, well I am and can you imagine how confused asylum seekers from Zimbabwe must be!

In any case, what do you think? Should the UN, or the AU or the EU or whoever, intervene in Zimbabwe and in which way?
Is the fact that the rest of the world lets Mugabe do whatever he wants, proof of moral double standarts?
Did Sadam have to go because he sat on an oildrum, but Mugabe can stay because he hasn�t got anything of great value for the Western economies?
Or is it none of our business what a pin pot dictator does in his own country, somewhere in the South of Africa?


The Guardian on Zimbabwe

Edited by Komnenos

What happens in Nigeria is because of oil and corperations proping up the regime. Zimbabwes different and has little to offer the world. It is landlocked and virtually 100% of it's imported goods come via South Africa and it's exports the same way. The obvious people to take action is the AU but realistically they won't. Pressure could be put on the AU by linking it to debt reduction but this may be used by westrn governments to wriggle out. Alternatively an UN sanctions is anohter way, the opposition to Mugabe is calling for them.

Something a bit comparable is happening here. Our current depor... immigration minister is very enthausiastically expelling asylum seekers. She has assured that she only sends them back to safe countries. However, I am storngly under the impression that unsafe countries don't exist, because Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and the DR Congo are considered safe countries. Recently it became clear that she sent information to the DR Congolese government about asylum seekers who are send back to Congo, while she assured she didn't do that. It is known that people who've tried to seek asylum in Europe are arrested in Congo.
Also there is strong evidence that she sends people back to countries they didn't come from. She allegedly made contracts with oa Nigeria, in which those countries promise to accept asylum seekers from other countries in return for aid.

Originally posted by Alparslan Mugabe has intervened the situtation that almost %90 of the cultivated land was in the hands of colonial British families. A kind of modern slavery was in scene in Zimbabwe and poor African workers were abused by a few hundred "families".

British Colonialism ended in the 70's, they are actually Zimbawean citizens whose parents and grandparents were born in the country. Are you seriously suggesting people born and raised in a country should be descriminated against because the of the colour of their skin?

What Mugabe did is the equivelant of rich black people in Europe being stripped of their wealth because they're the children of immigrants.

Have you seen what happened to the harvests when they kicked out the Europeans farmers? The country slumped into poverty, they were forced for the first time in many years to accept food aid. Farming is a prosession that requires years of hard experience to develop a skill for, you cannot simply replace farmers in the same way you do call centre staff. Mugabe's campaign against white farmers is a racist campaign which he has extended to the South Asian merchant class which is responsible for much of Zimbabwe's trade. So have cut out his farmers and merchants out from under him, Mugabe can sit back pleased as his recently evicted homeless people lack both the food and money to survive.