After years of silence on the crisis in Zimbabwe, last night former South African leader Nelson Mandela condemned the political violence that is gripping the country and criticized the government of Robert Mugabe.

Edith and I wanted to provide some more information and background about what this means.

Because of his stature both at home and abroad, these words by Mandela carry significant weight. Until now, the former president had kept quiet on the issue to avoid undermining current South African President Thabo Mbeki. However, in the past year Mbeki’s failed strategy of “quiet diplomacy” with Zimbabwe has come under increasing international criticism.

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF, rejected the criticism early this morning, saying that Mandela’s comments were unacceptable and unfortunate for a man of his stature.

Mandela’s comments join a choir of African voices that many deem too little and too late to have a real impact on Mugabe. In the lead-up to the runoff elections scheduled for tomorrow, pressure has been growing on Zimbabwe’s neighbors to take more forceful action in persuading Mugabe to cancel the election and agree to talk with the opposition. An emergency meeting held yesterday by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was a missed opportunity for key African leaders to take the strong positions needed to influence action. After a five-hour meeting in Swaziland, leaders from Tanzania, Angola and Swaziland called for a poll delay and said that a run off would be illegitimate. This is the strongest position taken by the SADC yet, but they finished their statement by concluding that the people of Zimbabwe could handle their own problems. Mbeki, who was notably absent from the summit, spoke to the meeting host Mswati (Swaziland’s president) at length on the phone, although it is unclear what position he took.

Next week is the African leaders will meet for the annual African Union summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Depending on what happens Friday, this could offer a new opportunity for African leaders to condemn the situation and a chance for the AU to exert its legal power to suspend Zimbabwe’s membership and demand new elections.

-Nora Coghlan and Edith Jibunoh

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.