what about Bob?

Nudging Bob towards the exit:

Today's MDC declaration represents a risky gamble because Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, had specifically warned the opposition not to claim victory prior to officially published results. However, there has been nothing but silence on the presidential vote, allowing the MDC to seize the initiative. Zimbabwean opposition officials were yesterday in contact with senior military and intelligence officials, attempting to persuade them to respect the results of the election as pressure grew on Mugabe to admit defeat.

Anyone remember I, Claudius? On the telly, back in ’75? I was eleven, and it was the best thing since The World at War the previous year. Formative stuff, my friends.

Anyway, what I’m thinking about specifically is the episode where Tiberius has retired to Capri and is just about dead – Caligula’s pulled the royal seal off his cold, numb finger and ponces around, generally showing off. But then the old bastard rises from his fatal bed, demanding veal cutlets. Consternation follows, until Macro forces him down and makes him eat pillow.

We seem to have reached the “what are we going to do with Bob?” stage. Well, what are we going to do with Bob? He’s a bit too old for the Hague. I bet the democratic opposition would quite like him to die accidentally from forced pillow ingestion, but don’t want to say so, while his own cronies are quite willing to do it, but want it made clear, so they’re covered and everyone knows the new boss is in town. But then you don’t want to treat him any worse than he treated Ian Smith – internationally it sends a bad peer group signal. Maybe they could shack him up with Mengistu, who’s also in the neighbourhood. Decisions, decisions...

Comments

[dsquared]

Surely the Pinochet solution is more likely - Tsvangerai just fundamentally shrugs his shoulders, lets him get off scot free and swallows it as the cost of progress, while Mugabe swans around Harare impersonating the elder statesman and being fawned over by old comrades?

That Hague tribunal would be a really unedifying spectacle for the British government too, given that it would dig up a whole load of past betrayals - I also suspect that the ICJ would be reluctant to set any sort of precedent that land reform in a former colony is per se a form of ethnic cleansing, although it basically is.

[Alex]

As if that was the *only* thing he could be charged with...

[dsquared]

It's an interesting question as to what the Hague indictment for Mugabe would actually have on it (and it would require Zimbabwe to ratify the ICC statute or a Security Council referral.

The IBA call for an indictment was based on the Harare slum clearances, but that looks unlikely to me as once more it would appear to set a precedent that's much stronger than anything the ICC seriously wants to get involved with. If anyone could prove that Zanu-PF used starvation as a political weapon in 2003-2005 then that would be the basis for an indictment but this looks unlikely to me too.

Other than that, what is there? Fixing elections isn't a Hague tribunal crime and nor is intimidating journalists or repressing protestors unless it rises to the level of a breach of the Torture Convention. Given how difficult it was to connect Milosevic to Karadic, I am very pessimistic for the chances of convicting Mugabe for murders and rapes carried out by the "war veterans" and as I said above, prosecuting him for ethnically cleansing the white Zimbabweans is a minefield all of its own. Maybe I'm missing something, but the lesson I take away from this is that international law's very weak indeed and it's very difficult to convict even really bad people. Peter Tatchell makes a good case for an indictment under the Torture Convention (and one which is a lot easier to sustain with RM as a former head of state) and that is probably the best shot.