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Editorial: Who gives a damn about Zimbabwe?

With Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) taking simultaneous trips to Africa and Central America to consolidate ties with the nation's allies, one might have expected no shortage of faux pas for critics to seize on -- and rhetoric-by-numbers that would make even supporters wince.

Yet the trips have proceeded smoothly. Instead, this week it was the Holy See, Taiwan's sole European ally, that continued to provide lessons in anti-diplomacy by sending hostile signals to its own rivals: moderate Catholics, Muslims, Jews and, thanks to Pope Benedict's most recent broadside, Protestants and Orthodox Christians.

For all of its platitudes on peace, the Vatican is in a fighting mood. Such a shame, then, that it could not be more aggressive in combating genuine tyranny. One would have thought that failing states and dictators -- such as Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe -- might be more deserving of a papal campaign than the devout on the other side of the fence.

Apparently not.

Zimbabwe, a former economic success story, is close to collapse now that the government has sunk to the point of arresting shopowners who heed inflation. A lot of innocent lives are on the line. But few governments seem to be taking the situation seriously to the extent that they would act.

Among others, South African President Thabo Mbeki deserves contempt for giving years of solace to a sociopath who has torn his country apart. South Africa, for one, may yet rue the consequences of this moral outrage and tactical stupidity.

Indeed, the Zimbabwe debacle teaches us a number of lessons about this part of Africa. Perhaps the most fundamental is that obvious omens for the ruination of a country -- co-opting of the courts by the government, an unhinged military and police force, xenophobic economic policy, rigged elections -- can stare neighboring countries in the face for years with nary a complaint. Evicting whites from farms and other locations seemed at the time to be a political tactic to appeal to the moronic element and even to other governments; in retrospect, it seems to have been the only tactic available to a man who would prefer destroying his country to relinquishing power.

Second, Zimbabwe is another example of just how fanciful the idea of a United States of Africa is -- with or without the likes of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi at the helm.

Third is the culpability of the UN. This organization continues to shield tyrants such as Mugabe from meaningful pressure because of the pervasive influence of despotic regimes -- in this case, the presence of a primary Mugabe benefactor, China, on the UN Security Council. Only a few years ago we heard top UN officials sighing that more should have been done in Rwanda to save the lives of the victims of genocide. But those people's successors in today's UN bureaucracy are silent on Zimbabwe as it prepares to commit suicide.

Yet there is one courageous Catholic, Archbishop Pius Ncube, who has shown himself to have the stuff of heroes -- unlike his religious masters and most of the rest of the world's governments -- by putting his life on the line in calling for international intervention to remove Mugabe and his thugs from power.

If Taiwan can learn anything from this disgraceful saga and from such people, it is that commitment and honor offer hope and inspiration in the shadow of the worst oppression. Faced with violence and terror, the good, wise man speaks the truth and speaks firmly, while carefully preparing for the consequences.
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