July 27, 2012
The European Union believes that resuming aid to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and lifting certain sanctions will build momentum for long-term reform.
Such thinking is misguided, The Heritage Foundation’s Morgan Roach explains:
Under the unity government, Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) have continued to abuse power and violate the rule of law. Considering that the draft constitution is viewed as a flawed document that makes too many concessions to ZANU-PF, the EU is rewarding the regime for complying with an action that it is not likely to contest in the first place.
No real reforms have materialized. For example, the government continues to stifle free speech and opposition political views. And the country’s proposed new constitution will not protect basic human rights or establish a representative government.
The United States should keep its current restrictions and discourage other nations from providing aid or removing sanctions. Until Zimbabwe demonstrates real commitment to reform, the US itself should continue to demand changes.
What do you thing the US should do about Zimbabwe?
ChuckL - July 28, 2012
The first thing that we should do is restore our constitutional rights in this country before we even attempt to push a few more bad ideas onto another country.
We do not have free speech in this country when our speech must pass through a political correctness filter to scrub words that someone may claim are offensive.
We do not have a free press in this country when the government will institute an IRS audit if the press makes a report that the government does not like.
We have no justification to complain about any other country’s elections when we do not require proof of eligibility to vote from our own voters.
We must eliminate the federal control of what is taught in our schools, and return this to local control of the parents. The best way to do this is in my opinion to replace all school support funding with vouchers to the student, or the student’s parents or guardian at a level of not more than 2/3 of the per pupil cost. Yes this will be claimed to b disruptive to our public schools, but it will be enough for our successful private schools and charter schools to increase their capability. In the process we must eliminate all federal education agencies. In most cases this would simply return control to the states where it belongs.
We should offer aid to Zimbabwe. It should only be given if ask for and the security of our citizens is guaranteed by Zimbabwe.