But that’s very African I must say.

1) resist all non-African overtures on the issues of life in Africa.

2) view the situation in Zimbabwe as an “anti-colonial revolution” and struggle against “white racism”

3) there is a ruling class in Africa, of which Mbeki is a member, and everyone else. No one in the ruling class must upset the balance of power.

4) raise hands in air, shrug, say “well I tried to talk to Bob and he won’t listen.”

With regard to the possible use of force should all other measures fail, would the world not be a better place were that considered in Rwanda, the Congo, Somalia, and now in Darfur?

I feel sorry for the diminishing people of that country too (1/4 of the population has left) but I’m not confident that any leader in Africa has any idea about what to do, or incentive to do something at all. Until the people of democratic African countries hold their leaders accountable we will not see regional leadership develop for any reason other than greed and power.

There will be more Mugabes in Africa if for no other reason than the other leaders stick their hands in their pockets and say “none of my business” while it’s happening. And when a legitimate humanitarian crisis develops all eyes will look to the U.S. and ask why we didn’t do anything.

“… the media and commentators have conveniently ignored these because Mbeki’s methods are at odds with the preferred Western “doctrine of democratisation by gun-barrel”, of which Iraq is the latest example.

“Citing Ruth First’s classic critique of military coups – The Barrel of A Gun – Mbeki stressed the pointlessness not only of force-fed democracy, but of arbitrarily defined milestones, ‘democratic musts’, that schematically measure supposed progress towards democracy, often at the expense of realities on the ground.”