Desmond Tutu: We Must Threaten Robert Mugabe With Force

LONDON — Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu said Wednesday that the international community must use the threat of force to oust Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe from office.

Tutu told BBC radio that he hopes African Union members can be persuaded to issue Mugabe an ultimatum, threatening to intervene if he continues clings to power in the ailing nation.

Asked if Mugabe should be removed by force, Tutu said there should "certainly be the threat of it." He said Mugabe should also be warned that he could face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for his violent suppression of opponents.

He said that he's ashamed that his native South Africa has so far blocked attempts to oust Mugabe. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki mediated a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Zimbabwe's opposition in September, but the agreement has stalled over how to divide Cabinet posts.

A cholera epidemic has killed more than 1,100 people since August and Zimbabwe remains mired in an economic and humanitarian crisis.

"I have to say that I am deeply, deeply distressed that we should be found not on the side of the ones who are suffering," Tutu told the BBC.

"We have betrayed our legacy, how much more suffering is going to make us say, 'No, we have given Mr. Mugabe enough time'," he said.

Tutu said that he is ashamed of South Africa's handling of the Zimbabwe issue at the U.N. Security Council, where China and Russia in July vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution that proposed worldwide sanctions against Mugabe and 13 officials.

The United States and Britain have said they can no longer support a power-sharing arrangement that keeps Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president. Mugabe has said London and Washington are stupid to think he shouldn't be part of a unity government.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday that Mugabe must leave office, and urged South Africa to instigate his removal.

Comments

[thebatgirl]

This man has been in power for what, close to 50 years or there about, it is time for him to go.
These despotic leaders get a hold of power and it goes to their heads, and they forget that like the rest of us they will die one day, then what?
For the sake of all those people suffering in Zimbabwe, I hope this ends soon, whichever way he leaves.

[stell]

The white collective likes Tutu and Mandela because they want the whites to keep the arable land at the 80%+ clip that they have it in South Africa. What will be interesting is now that they have their guy in place in South Africa how they will condemn him. They are already attacking him. Perhaps Tutu got to much grief for what he said about Israeli apartheid.

[Klimb]

When two elephants fight the grass suffers!

[Babysnake]

Unfortunately, Mugabe has support from outside forces and so the Bishop thinks we need to balance that force.

Of course, that leads to more war, not less.

[blueskybigstar]

What support does Mugabe have? And, with the troubles of his people how hard could it be to topple his cabal? They already have a good man who was legally elected. How hard could it be to put him into power? There are good fights and this is one of them.

[commarcos]

Are you people who support Mugabe that paranoid of the West? Mugabe is a tyrant who lost an election and will not step down. He has freed that country and then tied it down with his paranoia. He openly murders his dissenters. This is not a Western trick that is the reality. I agree sanctions are stupid and only continue to hurt a troubled population. If Africa wants to move forward then it must do so democratically, but the populations are held down by force. The people spoke and said they wanted Mugabe gone. I believe that the removal of Mugabe must be done with a united African force with possible aide from the UN. Africa is divided by the same paranoia that must be gripping everyone on this post and will not intervene anywhere. Chine and Russia veto? No surprise there, where do you think they get their "cheap" labor. The West is far far from pure but to ignore the dictators and oppressors in Africa, China, Russia, or anywhere else is doing the world an extreme disservice.

[stell]

Are you white?

[commarcos]

Are all white people ignorant or brilliant? Are all black people the same? Are people not also mixed race? Are people from each city, state, country, province, house, world not different? Why rope anybody into a trap question? The only way you would be pleased with any answer would have been if I had answered I am black from Zimbabwe and have personally been affected by Mugabe's rule. I am sorry but I do not need to fit into your categories to have an understanding of the world. I did not need to personally see the camps in Hitler's Germany, (many Germans and others in the world viewed Hitler as misunderstood and not a threat by the way), Apartheid in South Africa, or fascist rule of Stalin, Franco, Pinochet, etc, to understand the horrors and injustices. There is no excuse for Mugabe's actions suppressing the will of his people and crushing his dissenters. It is not excusable for him, any leaders in DR Congo responsible for atrocities, and get this it is no okay for the rebels in Darfur to kill civilians even though their cause is good. Too many are over zealous in their anti-west and anti-us rhetoric. It is true that both have and continue to damage the world but they are not all bad and the rest of the world is not all good. I am so sick of people thinking in bifurcated mentalities. The world isn't that simple and neither am I.

[blueskybigstar]

Why would that matter?

[GravitonX]

Europe and the United States are creating the turmoil in Zimbabwe by choking the economy in order to create social unrest. It's the classic Western modus operandi of attempting to topple governments. Remember the sanctions on Iraq during Saddam's reign? The result was massive disease outbreaks, and thousands, usually children and the elderly, dead. The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is no different. Sanctions go into effect; the currency is devalued, and the third world government can no longer afford medicine. Death and riots ensue. The West blames it on the incompetence, mismanagement, and corrupt (all of which may be there but the conditions are dramatically amplified). The sad irony is that many ignorant liberals cheer this brutal practice.

[stell]

The ignorant liberal cheers this to some extent because of their own latent refined-racism.
The idea that NPR types who supposedly well-read and champion diversity would sympathize with the colonizer out of some sense of kinship is very revealing.

Mugabe has bent over backwards to accommodate the oppressors, even offering them 99 year land leases. He should have seized that a land long time ago. His land expropriation was tame by international standards. But how is it expropriation when it was the native's land to begin with?

What the West really wants:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9707

[blueskybigstar]

He was incompetent. It is better to do nothing than to cause harm. The consequences of his actions and how he went about them are sad in the worst way and very preventable. He could have easily put a requirement that any farmers wishing to farm the lands that were to be reappropriated to them from whites would need training or schooling. The country was once rich enough to provide this.

[GravitonX]

The (white) Rhodesians want their country back. Sanctions, whose effects are blamed on Mugabe's mismanagement, are simply wrecking the economy.

[lungfish]

Mugabe needs to be stopped and the transition afterwords needs to be orderly. The man is a despot, a murdering sociopath with a fanatical following. Yes, at least the threat of force.

A nice fantasy would be a courtesy strike with a cruise missile, and an anonymous christmas card falling on the city like snow...

[Klimb]

Cruise missiles or anonymous christmas card falling are not the answer to this problem...think about the indigenous people at the cost of one person!

[Vincentt]

Everybody keeps berating Mugabe but nobody actually tells the truth about the situation in that country. All we hear is 200 million% inflation and cholera. There have been worse cholera outbreaks in African countries (notably in Angola and Ethiopia in 2007); Zimbabwe is more democratic than 80% of African countries and most of the dictators are backed by Western governments (these do not even bother to hold elections).

The trouble with Mugabe is that he dared to oppose the will of the West. That is why we have all these propaganda campaigns in major Western media outlets despite the fact that most people do not know where Zimbabwe is and why it justifies so much attention.

Most African leaders know what is really going on, and that is why the likes of Bishop Tutu (who is a good man) are in the minority in Africa. The only other people to criticize Mugabe in Africa are the leaders of Botswana (an insignificant country, even by African standards) and Lesotho (an absolute monarchy).

The issue in Zimbabwe is about land and resources and not democracy or Mugabe's crimes. Britain and the USA are trying to remove Mugabe and install their own puppet that they finance. The problem began in 2000/2001. The article below will help those who really want to learn as opposed to those who just swallow the propaganda or share the Rhodesian agenda in Zimbabwe.

(Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice)

http://www.counterpunch.org/elich05072005.html
.

[blueskybigstar]

Mugabe lost the election. He is a b r u t a l m u r d e r e r. To defend him implies you are the same or have the propensity to be or are you just fine with it?

[thepoliticalcat]

Yay, Bishop Tutu! It's time for Mugabe to be gone, he is a murderer, and if force is what it takes to remove him, then force should be used. Mugabe is the best demonstration that those who lead a revolution are not necessarily thereby fit to govern after the revolution succeeds. Like Ben Bella, he led his nation to freedom, and like Ben Bella, he proved to be too erratic and invested in his own cult of personality to govern effectively. He should have chosen to be an elder statesman instead of a governor. He would have been revered forever. It's sad to see his moral collapse. But he must go.

[Ramirez]

Okay HuffPo. Who's in favor of regime change?

[Garysaju]

President Mugabe has no moral claim to the seat he's so desperately trying to hold onto. If this disease can be surgically removed from the body of the people in hope of renewed life, then, Desmond Tutu's call to action is not in vain. Even doves, sometimes, cannot be pigeonholed into inaction.

[stell]

Desmond, is the West's hand maiden. The West is hypocritical to no end.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/21/companies-blacklisted-by_n_152733.html?show_comment_id=19027855#comment_19027855

[mybelovedcountry]

10 seconds left of the last quarter..mugabe......the clock is ticking......

[teacheng]

When a Nobel PEACE Prize winner says it's time to pick up the guns, you know its time.

[Patricia84]

Tell Kissinger about that!

[teacheng]

Haha, good point.