Will no-one help Zimbabwe?

An MDC party worker who was tied and beaten by pro-ZANU-PF supporters, waiting in a clinic in Harare to be treated
(photo credit: Getty Images via Newsweek)

Today Zimbabweans are being led to the polls. Led, not going. Police and paramilitary officers are literally leading people to the polling stations to participate in this sham of an election run-off.

With Tsvangirai out of the race so as to protect his party and its supporters, with Zimabweans having been dragged to brutal forced 're-education camps' for the last few weeks and dozens of people killed and thousands injured, we despair for Zimambwe.

It has gotten so that even other African leaders who have been loathe to criticise the man who was once one of the continent's leading anti-colonialist freedom fighters have become repulsed. At his 90th birthday celebrations in London the other day, Nelson Mandela, who has long tried to stay neutral in the whole situation, spoke against Mugabe's tyranny. Head of the ANC, Jacob Zuma has spoken out against Mugabe, Nigeria has called for its postponement, Botswanan president Ian Khama has threatened to take action against Zimbabwe if the South African Development Council does not.

I despair for Zimbabwe and moreover I despair for the legacy of the anti-colonialist freedom movement that swept Africa in the 60s to 80s. Mugabe was once the pride of independent-minded black people the world over. He has destroyed his legacy and allowed the former colonialists and the neo-colonialists to crow and say "See? See? Nothing but another despot... freedom fighter, what?"

There has long been a desire to paint many African freedom fighters as nothing but thugs - and too often we have played into their hands. Look at how the ANC elite set about to destroy Winnie Mandela's reputation. That woman was a warrior - she could have fled and lived in cushy exile like some others (*coff* Mbeki *coff*) but she stayed and endured. But they set after her with trials and innuendo and sullied her reputation and obscured the good she did.

Mugabe on the other hand has willingly destroyed his own legacy. He is 84 - I do not understand, why this rabid desire to stay in power in his twilight years? If he had left when the writing was on the wall - did like leaders do in the Caribbean and cede the leadership of his party to someone else when it became clear they were on the verge of losing, he could have had his cake and eaten it. He would have been wealthy, he would have been hailed as a freedom fighter a la Madiba and he would have never led his party to defeat.

But back to my original question - will no-one help Zimbabwe? The world sits by and twitters and tsks and tut-tuts and does little that is tangible. If this were an Eastern European country would they not have intervened already?

See, this is why it does Africans no good to be civil and democratic and go for their goals through the ballot rather than the bullet. MDC has done that and WHO HAS COME TO THEIR AID? It has come to the point where I want them to fight back. Get armed, get trained - fight!

The Rwandans had to fight - the world sat and watched a genocide and did NOTHING. The Rwandan Patriotic Front had to do it themselves. Idi Amin was driven from power by Ugandan exiles and Tanzania and then the petty dictators that came after him had to be driven out by the National Resistance Army. Laurent Kabila and the AFDL had to run the CIA-supported Mobutu from Zaire. And so on.

So is this what the world wants to see? Africans fighting among themselves? So they can say "oh, those Africans are always fighting among themselves - so much tribal warfare, tsk tsk."

I see.