As world opinion strengthens against Mugabe and his brutal 'election campaign', the UN Security Council declares that a 'free and fair election' is currently impossible in Zimbabwe. Welcome as that statement is, it is both late and too limited. It's not just a free and fair election that is impossible, it's a free and fair life.
I mean no frivolity. There seems, at last, to be movement towards exerting pressure for a political solution, and a political solution to Zimbabwe's long crisis is sorely needed. But talk of a 'negotiated settlement' only highlights the problem I drew attention to yesterday. The politics of the situation may dictate a need for negotiation, but morally and legally there should be no negotiation between an opposition party which has won an election and the regime that is attempting to negate the result of it by violence. The agencies of international law are in hock to political exigencies, where a greater separation of the two is needed.