While this politicization of the food situation in "his" country was being completed, President Robert Mugabe benefited from two things: the indulgence of the government of South Africa and the lenience of the authorities in Rome, who allowed him to attend a U.N. conference on the world food crisis—of all things—despite a five-year-old ban on his travel to any member of the European Union.And it's not just Saint Nelson who's dropping the ball here...
This, in turn, seems to me to implicate two of the supposed sources of moral authority on the planet: Nelson Mandela and the Vatican.
By his silence about what is happening in Zimbabwe, Mandela is making himself complicit in the pillage and murder of an entire nation, as well as the strangulation of an important African democracy.
And it seems he bears a charmed life in Rome. He was there only recently as a guest at the funeral of Pope John Paul II and was able to claim that he was on Vatican soil rather than Italian territory.What indeed?
Which in turn raises an interesting question: What is it going to take before the Roman Catholic Church has anything to say about the conduct of this member of its flock?
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