The solidarity among African leaders that has sustained President Robert Mugabe's brutal regime in Zimbabwe may be on the verge of disintegrating. Mugabe's decision to shut down Zimbabwe's only independent newspaper, The Daily News, could prove to be crucial in weakening the support that he still enjoys in the region.
Three years ago a truck packed with explosives careened into the building housing the newspaper. Its printing press was destroyed. With the assistance of foreign donors, however, The Daily News acquired a new press and managed to keep publishing a first-rate newspaper.
Despite government attempts since then to shut the paper down -- arresting and even torturing some of its staff, as well as tampering with its circulation and newsprint supply -- The Daily News adhered to its slogan of "telling it like it is." As Zimbabwe plunged into economic chaos and Mugabe stepped up his repression, circulation, once around 100,000 a day, fell by roughly a third.
Last month, Mugabe's riot police, armed with AK-47 rifles, raided the paper, halting production and looting much of its equipment -- though not the new printing press, which was too big to carry away.
The purported reason for closing The Daily News is that the paper refused to register under the bizarrely named Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) of 2002 on the grounds that it violates Zimbabwe's constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.
Under the AIPPA, reporters are required to file their home addresses with the government; presumably this is what the word "privacy" in the law's title means. Reporters may face criminal prosecution for publishing inaccurate information; apparently, this is the basis for the reference to "access to information."
At least a dozen journalists have been arrested under the AIPPA, including the only foreign correspondent permanently based in the country, Andrew Meldrum of the British newspaper The Guardian. Meldrum was subsequently deported.
The Mugabe regime has committed outrage after outrage. Its catalogue of crimes includes: stealing last year's elections that enabled Mugabe to hold on to power; torturing and murdering supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change; transformation of a fertile, prosperous country once considered Africa's breadbasket into a place where half the population barely survives on foreign food handouts; and, as exemplified by its attacks on The Daily News, the suppression of critical voices.
Yet Zimbabwe's neighbors, particularly those in Southern Africa, have defended Mugabe.
In late August, the heads of state of 13 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), including Mugabe and South African President Thabo Mbeki, met in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to consider the challenges before them.
Among the 54 paragraphs of the summit's final communique, two dealt with Zimbabwe. One proclaimed "solidarity with Zimbabwe ... to encourage and sustain the positive developments that are taking place." The other condemns "the Commonwealth, the EU, and the US sanctions as they hurt not only ordinary Zimbabweans but also have profound social and economic implications on the region as a whole."
The suggestion that international sanctions are a cause of Zimbabwe's economic woes is ludicrous, as the measures that have been imposed have nothing to do with trade. Indeed, it is the governments cited in the communique that are donating the food that keeps Zimbabweans alive. The targeted sanctions address such matters as the foreign bank accounts of Mugabe and his associates and their right to travel to Europe and the US on holidays and shopping trips.
Yet the closing of The Daily News seems to have prompted the first signs that things may be changing. Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo responded to the paper's closure with the announcement that Mugabe would not be invited to the December meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting scheduled to take place in his capital, Abuja.
Mbeki reacted to Obasanjo's announcement with what South Africa's business weekly The Financial Mail described as "surprise and consternation."
Much depends on whether Africa follows the path now being charted by Obasanjo or whether the continent's leaders stick to the line of the SADC and Mbeki. It is not only the future of Zimbabwe that is at stake. Also at issue is whether the rest of the world takes seriously the commitments to democracy and good governance in the New Economic Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) and the Constitutive Act for the new African Union.
Mbeki and Obasanjo took the lead in making these commitments. Zimbabwe tests whether they will deliver.
Aryeh Neier, the president of the Open Society Institute and a founder of Human Rights Watch, is the author of Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Rights. Copyright: Project Syndicate
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
On Sunday, 13 new urgent care centers (UCC) officially began operations across the six special municipalities. The purpose of the centers — which are open from 8am to midnight on Sundays and national holidays — is to reduce congestion in hospital emergency rooms, especially during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year. It remains to be seen how effective these centers would be. For one, it is difficult for people to judge for themselves whether their condition warrants visiting a major hospital or a UCC — long-term public education and health promotions are necessary. Second, many emergency departments acknowledge
US President Donald Trump’s seemingly throwaway “Taiwan is Taiwan” statement has been appearing in headlines all over the media. Although it appears to have been made in passing, the comment nevertheless reveals something about Trump’s views and his understanding of Taiwan’s situation. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US and Taiwan enjoy unofficial, but close economic, cultural and national defense ties. They lack official diplomatic relations, but maintain a partnership based on shared democratic values and strategic alignment. Excluding China, Taiwan maintains a level of diplomatic relations, official or otherwise, with many nations worldwide. It can be said that
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made the astonishing assertion during an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, published on Friday last week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. She also essentially absolved Putin of blame for initiating the war in Ukraine. Commentators have since listed the reasons that Cheng’s assertion was not only absurd, but bordered on dangerous. Her claim is certainly absurd to the extent that there is no need to discuss the substance of it: It would be far more useful to assess what drove her to make the point and stick so
RSS