Concerted action against Mugabe

Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs columnist at the Financial Times, calls on the international community to intervene in the crisis in Zimbabwe: "It is urgent that action is taken now – while the political situation is still in flux. ... Zimbabwe is still a member of important international organisations and economic sanctions on the country have been limited. International isolation of Mr Mugabe - combined with tougher, targeted, economic sanctions - might still force change. Britain, the US and the European Union need to cut off the access to hard currency and international banks that allows Mr Mugabe and his cronies to float above Zimbabwean hyper-inflation. ... But the biggest source of new pressure on the Mugabe regime has to come from its southern African neighbours. ... If, by contrast, the main regional organisations – the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – took the unprecedented step of expelling Zimbabwe, they would strip the Mugabe regime of its last fig-leaf of legitimacy."

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