America’s punditocracy (predominantly white and male by the way) always feels entitled to speak on everything though they may know nothing about it.
Zimbabwe is the latest instance.
First came Christopher Hitchens.
Now Thomas Friedman also wants to add his bit on Robert Mugabe who we don’t need to remind ourselves is using every trick — including state violence against his political opponents and clumsy electoral fraud — to hold onto state power (and the personal financial rewards it brings) in Zimbabwe.
See here.
As Greg Mann, a historian of Africa, pointed out to me: “.. Is Friedman serious when he compares South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki to Zimbabwe’s discredited Robert Mugabe? Last summer, Mbeki oversaw and accepted his own defeat in elections within his own, ruling African National Congress party. The fact that a democrat, flawed as he may be, can’t budge a dictator hardly makes him ‘disgusting.’ And it certainly doesn’t make the term ‘anti-colonial’ a pejorative one.”
I am tired.
The New York times seems rto have been the voice of US imperialism recently!
Not only is Friedman’s piece flawed as a piece of political analysis, it is factually wrong to boot. Mugabe could never be taken to the International Criminal Court for stealing this election. First, the ICC only deals with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Stealing an election does not fit into any of those categories, as even a cursory glance of the Rome Statute would show. Second, the ICC can only try individuals from states who have ratified the Rome Statute. Zimbabwe has not. Even when states do, only crimes committed after the ratification date count. Third, the ICC is a relatively weak organization at present. Ironically, this is partly because the world’s greatest power has not ratified the Rome Statute itself.
Perhaps instead of recommending America send Mugabe to the ICC, Friedman should recommend the US ratify the Rome Statute.
Additionally, Friedman should note that America did not send Serbia’s leaders to the ICC. For one, it was not the ICC to which they were sent but the ICTY – an international tribunal set up specifically to deal with the Balkans conflict. Additionally, it was the UN who sent them there, not America.