Last december, while facilitating a training on monitoring the right to health organized by Action Group For Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA) Uganda, I met a medical student from Zimbabwe whose school has been shut down. As many reports have indicated, (http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2009-01-13.html) teaching hospitals have closed due to the lack of stability and complete collapse of the country’s heath system. What does the future hold for this young man and many others in his situation? He has no other choice but to remain in his country. He cannot attend another medical school, yet he has no idea when the school and teaching hospital will reopen again. He has not lost hope though because he knows that there are people out there like you and me who will fight for him.
Uganda, which as been elected to occupy a non-permanent seat of UN Security Council in the 2009-10 term, must use its regional influence to work the Zimbabwe situation through the Southern African Development Community. http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/509860/-/item/1/-/x8qfrj/-/index.html
However, Uganda’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, Mr. Francis Butagira objects to UN involvement: “The issue of Zimbabwe does not have an international security dimension and thus does not warrant intervention by the Security Council.” http://voteforhumanity.org/2009/01/15/uganda-begins-term-on-un-security-council/
I couldn’t disagree more. People in Zimbabwe are dying, not because of armed conflict or aggression, but because of the adamancy of their leader who is putting personal interests before the lives of his people. For me, this is an issue of human security, human rights and breach of peace. Absence of war or armed conflict does not imply the presence of peace. The Mugabe regime has destroyed the health-care system, as it has devastated virtually every other sector of public life, with its ruinous mix of corruption, mismanagement, violence and human rights violations.
What kind of future is he creating for the generations of people in Zimbabwe? Are the people of Zimbabwe living in peace? Is there peace when people cannot obtain basic services like healthcare, water and proper sanitation? Don’t the people of Zimbabwe have a fundamental right to these services?
And let’s not forget what history has taught us. African Union peacekeepers failed to maintain the peace and stop the conflict in Darfur. Even the African Mission in Sudan has been ineffective in protecting civilians in Darfur. The forces have a limited mandate, are poorly equipped, underpaid with no morale due to lack of logistics, and are operating in a road less dessert terrain only accessible by air. Instead African Union troops have become part of the victim group.
The U.N Security Council is notorious for pushing the interests of the permanent members with veto power. It does not always have to be this way. Uganda can make a difference. Moreover, its time that the Security Council serve the actual purpose for which is formed- to serve member states as a whole, and not the interests of the permanent members. The Security Council must act in accordance with the principles and purposes of the UN Charter.
Let us not go on record for always wanting African solutions for African problems while our people continue to die. What will we tell the future generation that we did for our continent? How shall we explain to our children that Mugabe let his people die, and we allowed him to do that?
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