Zimbabwe President Cutting Rights, so South Africa Protesting

National Scene Magazine-February 2009 International Article

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Cut in Rights, Reporting Lead to South Africans’ Cut in Eating, In Effort to Boycott these Practices


Written by: Karen Benardello


South Africans eager to see a change in Zimbabwe’s government and to isolate their neighboring country’s president, Robert Mugabe, are planning a hunger strike and other protests over the leader’s policies and practices, and are encouraging their own government to step in and stop him.

However, the South African government isn’t listening to these pleas, as it feels that confronting the 84-year-old president, who is accused of limiting the democratic rights of his citizens and overseeing an economic collapse, could backfire. The South African government feels Zimbabwe could continue to run and function smoothly under the September power-sharing agreement it consented on, under which Mugabe would remain president and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become the new prime minister.

Many activists who are against this plan and want to draw attention to, and see a change in, the way the government is run vow to publicly announce and shame South African companies doing business in Zimbabwe, which could lead to boycotts. Kumi Naidoo, one such activist who is also a veteran of the anti-apartheid campaign, hopes such a plan will raise more awareness amongst South Africans, who have largely been protesting the Israeli strikes in Gaza, but have been relatively quiet about their neighbor Zimbabwe.

Elinor Sisulu, who married into one of South Africa’s most prominent political families (the Sisulus are heavily involved in the African National Congress, South Africa’s governing party), said this may be because they don’t understand the situation in Zimbabwe, due to Mugabe’s government imposing international reporting restrictions. Sisulu is also claiming that his opponents experience the same detention, harassment and torture that her in-laws experienced under apartheid.

If Mugabe truly does limit his citizens’ rights, allowed the economic collapse, restricts the information that leaves his country’s borders and detains, harasses and tortures his opponents, members of the African National Congress in South African shouldn’t allow him to stay in power, even under the power-sharing agreement.

While it’s admirable that the South African government wants representatives from both political parties to take control in Zimbabwe, the fact that the agreement is stalled in a dispute over distributing Cabinet posts should be a sign that the sides can’t even work together on simple issues. Even if South African residents don’t know the true extent of what’s going on in their neighboring country, the South African government should step up and intervene, in an effort to save the peace and dignity among the people and government.