With no vital interests at stake for West, Mugabe and cronies have little to fear

Why is the world so reluctant to act against a dictator like Mugabe? asks Bill Corcoran .

THE LEADER of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, Morgan Tsvangirai, made an impassioned plea to regional and international leaders last Monday to take "strong action" against the country's president, Robert Mugabe.

"How can global leaders espouse the values of democracy, yet when they are being challenged they fail to open their mouths? Why is it that a supposed 'war on terror' ignores the very real terror of broken minds and mangled bodies that lie along the trail left by Mugabe?"

The 56-year-old leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), angered by the lack of support his party has received in attempting to force Mugabe's regime to accept the will of the people, was hoping western leaders would back up rhetoric about support for emerging democracies with action.

And what has been the world's response? South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki, the regional leader tasked with mediating between the MDC and Mugabe, maintains that even though state-sponsored violence is spreading across the country, the situation is "manageable" and the world should wait to see how events unfold.

Belatedly, Zambia yesterday called an emergency meeting of southern African leaders to discuss the impasse on Saturday. World leaders such as George Bush and Gordon Brown have been conspicuous by their refusal to do anything other than issue daily statements expressing their "concern" over the failure of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the election results.

The standard responses to accusations that world leaders are failing the people of Zimbabwe are formulated around the line that "everything that can be done is being done".

It is true that targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies are in place; that their international bank accounts have been frozen; and that many countries refuse to allow them to visit. But in the grand scheme of things, surely that is not all that can be done?

It certainly was not in the case of East Timor in 1999 when it sought independence from Indonesia. The UN talked Indonesia's government, a regime historically just as brutal as Mugabe's, into allowing it to oversee the country's vote on independence.

The same can be said for the Kosovo war. In 1998, the western governments acted swiftly and the Serbian authorities were compelled to sign a unilateral ceasefire and retreat.

And the current Iraqi war was waged to liberate a country of a tyrant who allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction.

So why is Zimbabwe being ignored when it has one of Africa's last great dictators at the helm? Why has the world not acted on the fact the Mugabe has just suffered the worst election result in his 28-year history and his ruling regime is divided and weakened and ripe for change?

The fact that the electoral commission, the board of which is appointed by Mugabe, refuses to release the presidential election results is tantamount to the ruling regime admitting the 84-year-old was defeated.

One would have to ask oneself if the world really only cares about aiding the spread of democracy to countries under dictatorship when there is something to gain from the process?

The answer, if one looks at recent military interventions the West has made and the reasons behind them, would have to be Yes.

Zimbabwe does not have the oil reserves that compelled the US and Britain to invade Iraq in the Middle East. Zimbabwe is not on Europe's doorstep, so unlike Kosovo it is not a huge embarrassment and cannot destabilise the EU.

And unlike East Timor, Zimbabwe does not have massive oil and gas reserves offshore, or offer a global power a prime vantage point from which to observe one of the world's largest Muslim countries.

Indeed, if one was really cynical one could ask why western leaders were far more vocal eight years ago when Mugabe suffered his first electoral defeat in a referendum that revolved around his land reform policies.

Was it because a significant white population was then the focus of Mugabe's ire, as opposed to the predominantly black population that is suffering now?

Bill Corcoran, who is based in Johannesburg, reports for The Irish Times . He has just returned from Zimbabwe.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times