The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs held a hearing on Tuesday at which witnesses from the State Department, USAID, Freedom House and the Council on Foreign Relations delivered testimony on the crisis in Zimbabwe. Senator Kerry spoke about the recent sham elections there, in which Robert Mugabe used violence and intimidation to retain power and force his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, to withdraw from the election to save the lives of his supporters. Senator Kerry shared his reaction as members of the African Union and other world leaders appear to have turned a blind eye to 'Zimbabwe's agony' and the theft of the Zimbabwean election by Mugabe's ruthless regime.
“There’s really some sense that the world has lost its capacity for appropriate outrage.”
Senator Kerry described the circumstances surrounding the election, as villagers were handed bullets and told to choose between their lives and 'democracy'.
“MDC (the opposition party) believes 113 of its supporters were killed, about 10,000 injured, more than 2,000 unlawfull detained and over 200,000 fled their homes, and frankly the details are much more horrifying than those statistics convey, because as we know, women were burned to death, young men were tortured and dismembered, the elderly were savagely beaten, and Mugabe had the audacity to say to the world ‘what do I care about an election? An X on a ballot means nothing against the power of a gun.'And against all of this, where are we?”
Video Credit: Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The UN failed last week to impose U.S. proposed sanctions including an arms embargo,travel ban and assets freeze against Mugabe, with Russia and China refusing to support the US position. Despite the 113 politically motivated murders attributed to Mugabe and his thugs leading up to the election, they claimed the sanctions were a 'violation of the UN charter'.
Seems to me you can't get through the preamble of the UN Charter without running into something that would apply. How about "fundamental human rights"? You'd think not being murdered would be one of those.
Voice of America covered the story.
Video Credit: VOAvideo
The full hearing "The Crisis in Zimbabwe and Prospects for Resolution" is available at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee website.
