Saving Zimbabwe is not colonialism, it's Britain's duty

Tony Blair famously avoided the Zimbabwean issue by declaring it a matter that required "An African solution" which was no doubt an attempt to pass the whole sorry mess on to the shoulders of South Africa's President Mbeki and avoid the charge of British colonialism from Mugabe.

There are many of us who thought that this represented a cop out. Mugabe has run his country into the ground, attacked his political opponents, and operated a dictatorship that shames the whole of Africa. The actions of Mbeki, who has supposedly been attempting to negotiate with Mugabe to temper his behaviour, has been a lesson in abject failure.

Now the Archbishop of York has stepped up to the plate to demand that the world begins to take action against the Zimbabwean regime.

He begins by pointing our just what the state of play in Zimbabwe currently is:

The statistics alone are devastating: the average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34 years; for men, it is 37. Inflation rages at 8,000 per cent; the shelves are empty of bread and maize; in the hospitals and clinics, children die for lack of vitamins, food and medicine, while the ravages of Aids are exacerbated by government indifference.

In the cramped townships now home to those supporters of the opposition whose homes Mugabe destroyed in a frenzy of destruction called 'Clean Out the Filth', there is no electricity or fresh running water and sewage spews out of the dilapidated buildings. The first cholera deaths were reported last week.

He demands that now is the time for the international community to step up to the plate and impose the kind of sanctions which the world once placed on Apartheid South Africa on the Zimbabwean regime.

The time for 'African solutions' alone is now over. Despite his best efforts, President Mbeki has failed to help the people of Zimbabwe. At best, he has been ineffectual in his efforts to advise, cajole and persuade Robert Mugabe to reverse his unjust and brutal regime. At worst, Mbeki is complicit in his failing to lead the charge against a neighbour who is systematically raping the country he leads.

Britain needs to escape from its colonial guilt when it comes to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is the worst kind of racist dictator. Having targeted the whites for their apparent riches, Mugabe has enacted an awful Orwellian vision, with the once oppressed taking on the role of the oppressor and glorying in their totalitarian abilities.

Like Idi Amin before him in Uganda, Mugabe has rallied a country against its former colonial master only to destroy it through a dictatorial fervour. Enemies are tortured, the press is censored, the people are starving and meanwhile the world waits for South Africa to intervene. That time is now over.

It is now time for the sanctions and campaigns that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa to be applied to the Mugabe regime. What Britain deemed to be in the best interest of the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith must now be enacted against the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe. The smart sanctions implemented by governments towards terror groups now need to be brought to bear upon Mugabe's regime.

There are many of us, myself included, who have thought many times that Mugabe was about to fall and that the South African nations would come together to ensure his downfall. However, each false dawn has simply resulted in Mugabe facing down Mbeki and others and imposing an even harsher rule on his people than that which existed before.

The Archbishop of York now demands that Gordon Brown steps in where Blair feared to tread and that he now makes the case for sanctions against this odious regime, despite the fact that any international sanctions will be used by Mugabe as a further example of colonial meddling.

The appalling poverty suffered by those who queue daily for bread in southern Harare is a world apart from the shops, boutiques and sprinkled lawns of northern Harare, where Mugabe's supporters live in palatial surroundings. Britain must lead the way in calling for targeted sanctions against those purveyors of misery whose luxury is bought at the cost of unbearable poverty.

Blair's 'ethical foreign policy' is a long-forgotten memory, sacrificed upon an invasion undertaken without UN sanction. In its place, our new Prime Minister, with his record on debt erosion and activism across Africa, is faced with a spiralling desperation that demands a response. While Mugabe may well brand Brown a 'colonialist' or 'imperialist' for any action he takes, the people of Zimbabwe look to us, and to others, to heed the cries of their suffering and the voices of our own conscience.

Brown has a very good track record when it comes to Africa and the Archbishop of York is now calling on him to use that good name for a deeply moral purpose.

Zimbabwe, under Mugabe, has teetered on the edge of collapse without ever actually going over the edge. A simple push would end the whole sorry debacle.

The fear of being branded colonialists by a dreadful dictator should not be enough stop the UK from doing what is morally right. Africa has failed to find a solution and it is time for the rest of us to step into the vacuum and do what is right for the people of Zimbabwe.

And that means opposing his vicious regime through rigorous sanctions.

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