Why the thugs rule in Africa…

If Africa’s leaders had been as good at helping their people as they are about setting up useless talk shops, the continent would have a much better story to tell, 60 years after the wind of changes swept over it.

The Organisation of African Unity and its successor, the African Union, have signally failed to do anything to unify the continent or reduce its dependence on the globe’s mega powers. They have cravenly ignored the abuse of human rights and endemic corruption which continues across Africa.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is supposed to ensure people in this part of Africa can lift themselves up out of poverty, has been as much a waste of time as the broader talk shops. At a time when Zimbabwe’s citizens are again under assault from its thugocracy of a government, the rest of the SADC stays mum, as it always has done.

It is almost beyond understanding how South Africa, which was supposedly founded on a commitment to democracy and human rights, can sit by and watch this happen. We have all of the authority – from economic to moral – to do something. That we don’t, means we are no better than the rest of Africa’s criminal accomplices.

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