The United Nations:  Its Moral as well as Legal Obligations to Zimbabwe

 The United Nations is often censured as an anachronistic institution based on the fabric of the old world that is no longer relevant. However, for me the United Nations has always and will always be the  a shining hope to what the international community as sworn to do for those who are terrorized by their own governments and for those who  are inadequately cared for by their own government.   In today’s paper, the New York Times reported that the Security Council voiced reluctance on helping the people of Zimbabwe (ttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/world/africa/30zimbabwe.html?_r=1&ref= ). The international community  in situations like Zimbabwe has a moral as well as a legal imperative to actually help to make sure that one more country, especially in Africa, does not turn into a violent state---where warlords rule. The United Nations seems to shortchange the world on this part, especially the people of Zimbabwe.  These African fossils who have been ruling these countries for generations need to leave and a more democratic, competitive society needs to emerge with a progressive agenda to take the  people of Zimbabwe to a better future. Mugabe should not be the precedent for the past, and the international community will allow him to become just that when they do not do anything in Zimbabwe. The man obviously still has political clout and he still has a psychological control of Zimbabwe because few can even think of Zimbabwe without thinking of Mugabe; that just needs to stop!!!

                Zimbabwe is a country that has a lot of natural resources and if allowed can bounce back and be part of the global community politically as well as economically. Inflation is absurdly high; and  Mugabe took all the farms from people who were capitally as well as technically capable of running them and gave them to his Buchos who blatantly made their pockets thicker.  The world owes it to the people of Zimbabwe to make sure that the country is taken out of the hands of that mad man!! It is one thing to suffer because of   lack of food resulting from natural disasters but another thing to suffer because one man is just absurdly stupid; despite all the degrees he seems to have (Mugabe has about six degrees).  My main problem with what is happening in Zimbabwe is the precedent argument because if Mugabe continues to do what he is doing he will inevitably be emulated by the many selfish leaders that are waiting for their chance at the state house. Moreover, this can only change if  politics is viewed less of a way to get rich and more of way to improve the country (it is often said in Africa if you want to get rich become a politician or a government contractor).

                The United Nations needs to act and in this case will have to disregard issues of “national sovereignty” for the sake of a better Zimbabwe. If the American founding fathers did not execute the American Revolution they would have been hanged for treason; but they saw it fit that they had suffered too much at the hand of a treacherous government that saw no reason to uplift them. Allow the people of Zimbabwe that opportunity and assist them; moreover, they at least took everything to the polls and the people decided within the prescribed democratic legal structure that “MUGABE HAS GOTS  TO GO!!!”