Posted by David Kopel:
Zimbabwe Democide Facilitated by Victim Disarmament:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_29-2005_06_04.shtml#1117814877
StrategyPage, the world's best public website for military analysis,
[1]warns that "Zimbabwe is about ready to explode in a nightmare mass
murder." StrategyPage calls the killings "democide"--a word invented
by University of Hawaii political scientist [2]R.J. Rummel for mass
killings. ("Genocide," a word invented during World War II, more
narrowly refers to mass killings aimed a particular ethnic or
religious group. The Pol Pot killings in Cambodia would technically be
"democide" rather than "genocide", since the Khmer Rouge killed
Cambodians without regard to their ethnicity.)
As with many previous democides, the democide in Zimbabwe is being
perpetrated with a government-induced famine, in which food aid is
directed only to government loyalists, and the "black market" in food
is suppressed.
StrategyPage explains why the Mugabe tyranny is able to perpetrate
democide: "There hasn�t been any revolution so far because the
potential rebels cannot get guns. No one is willing to arm the
dissatisfied majority....The government seems determined to starve its
enemies to death, secure in the knowledge that the victims are
unarmed, and the government forces have lots of guns."
Back in 2001, Paul Gallant, Joanne Eisen, and I warned that Zimbabwe
was "ripe for genocide." We also detailed how the Mugabe tyranny has
used gun licensing and registration laws, inherited from British
colonial times, to disarm the people of Zimbabwe, leaving them
helpless against government-controlled gangs of young thugs.
In a 2002 [3]article in the Rocky Mountain News, I noted the American
media's extremely inadequate coverage of Zimbabwe, including the
failure to report on an explicit statement by the ruling party
(Zanu-PF) about the advantage of getting rid of half of the country's
population.
The international community's response to the highly visible democide
in Zimbabwe has been even more ineffectual and tepid than the response
to the highly visible genocide in Darfur, Sudan. One reason is that
the Mugabe dictatorship retains the support of South African President
Mbeki. Likewise, the dictators who run most of subsaharan Africa
strongly creating a precedent of international intervention against
mass-murdering African tyrants.
But if the people of Zimbabwe had not been disarmed under the pretext
of "gun safety", they would be able to help themselves. A revolution
would not be guaranteed to succeed, but fighting to live is much
better than helplessly starving to death.
After the Holocaust, the international community said "Never again."
Yet in Zimbabwe, as in so many other nations in the last 60 years, the
combination of citizen disarmament and international indifference has
made democide a reality again and again and again.
An excellent daily news source about Zimbabwe is the [4]ZWNews
website, which also offers a free daily e-mail update. The courageous
[5]Zimbabwe Independent is still publishing a web edition.
References
1. http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=POTHOT.HTM
2. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/LIST.HTM
3. http://www.davekopel.com/Media/RMN/2002/Zimbabwe.htm
4. http://www.zwnews.com/
5. http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
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