JIM BLAKE
Sir, - Your reporter, Declan Walsh, describes Robert Mugabe in his report "Defining moment for Africa" as the "hoary autocrat". He also refers to him as "old man" who was going to "bludgeon his way to victory".
The human rights abuses in Zimbabwe by the Mugabe government and some opposition elements are a disgrace which need to be dealt with. The workers and trade unionists had some leadership from some elements of the MDC opposition but their lacklustre performance in opposition in parliament where they have had 54 members for the last two years did not inspire sufficient enthusiasm to get Morgan Tsvangirai elected.
For the West to impose sanctions on a third-world country because it does not like the election result, is a bit hypocritical. Nigeria's Abdulsalam Abubakar was the man who made the announcement that the Commonwealth condemned the election process in Zimbabwe. In a previous existence as General Abubakar, he was a military dictator of Nigeria. He is currently facing accusations of stealing more than $2 billion from Nigeria's foreign reserves.
Another critic of the recent election process in Zimbabwe is the Norwegian Kare Vollan. He was head of the Norwegian observers. Kare Vollan also works for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. He supervised the Ukranian Parliamentary elections in 1998 and in his own words "did not call into question the results" despite his own statement that there was "violence, intimidation and harassment during the run up to elections".
The difference with the Zimbabwean situation was that the outcome of the election was one with which the Organisation for Security and Co-operation was happy. Ukraine was then the West's favourite state in what was once the Soviet Union.
Declan Walsh highlights why the West has taken such a great interest in Zimbabwe. He states: "Zimbabwe has the continent's highest literacy rates, some of its most sophisticated industry and upwardly mobile middle class".
Britain is currently plundering these "upwardly mobile middle classes", employing large numbers of expensively trained Zimbabwean nurses and doctors for its own ailing health service and sanctions will give the green light to plunder more.
Put in the context of world outrage at unequal trade which robs the Third World, and condemns millions of people to starvation and poverty, the sanctions against the flawed but elected government in Zimbabwe look not only hypocritical but cynical. - Yours, etc.,
JIM BLAKE
Douglas West,
Cork.