University of Oxford teacher Cameron should meet Mugabe in Brussels - did not know the University was that desperate for teachers!

For a University lecturer anywhere this is really an article of the poorest quality. The English is perfect but the content is trash.

 

 "UK policy on Zimbabwe was based on the belief that Mugabe would lose in the 2013 elections", we are told. That is nonsense, it was clear to everyone, other than the MDC and its leadership (and no doubt the writer too) than Mugabe was going to win the 2013 elections because the former had failed to implement not even one democratic reform.

 

The suggestion that a country like Britain would base its foreign policy on notion that "Mugabe will soon die" should be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserves.

 

The argument that if the British Prime Minister was to boycott the Brussels meeting because Mugabe was there then he must also boycott if Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta attended is problematic because the two African leaders are different and circumstances are different. If the boycott is to be bases on the number of people murdered, “over 1 000” then the write should point out that Robert Mugabe has murdered over 30 000!

 

The thrust of the writer’s argument is that the British PM should not boycott the meeting because Mugabe is there since he was not going to do the same if President Kenyatta attended; a fallacious argument. If boycott the meeting if Mugabe attends is the right thing (I believe it is indeed the right thing) then to abandon that course of action just because he could or could not in another independent situation is stupid.

 

When the West imposed the sanctions on Mugabe for failing to hold free and fair elections they showed the tyrant that they did not just call for human rights but meant it. The West was showing its commitment to justice and human rights for the oppressed masses. In the July 2013 elections Mugabe blatantly rigged the elections and thus once again denying the ordinary Zimbabweans their most basic right.

 

If the West was to disregard what Mugabe has done then every other African leader would want to do the same, blatantly rig the elections. The West will be able to do anything then because they would have lost all credibility. How anyone can construe that as “constructive influence” beggars belief!

 

The University of Oxford is a much respected institution the world over but I suppose even they cannot be expected to get things right every time. How else can one explain how someone like Blessing-Miles Tendi can be teaching anything there!