Zimbabwe: China's role

For some background on the crisis in Zimbabwe, see previous posts.

The post-election crisis has yet to end as the violence continues. The opposition party, the MDC, continues to debate whether or not they will enter a run-off election. MDC leader Robert Tsvangirai says he will not commit to anything until the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has set a concrete date for the run-offs. Though both sides urge their supporters to suppress violence if the run-offs occur, tensions throughout the country remain high enough for these calls to have any impact most likely. And, unfortunately, even if violence does quell during this anticipated event, the run-offs will most likely once again spur large-scale controversy unless electoral reforms are made to hold free and fair elections, according to Human Rights Watch.

For more analysis, check out Mussolini's Falacy, a blog that has been monitoring this crisis more closely.

Violence and the elections has not been the only thing that has been catching the world's attention in Zimbabwe. A few weeks ago, southern African ports blocked a shipment of arms from China that were to be delivered to Zimbabwe. The large shipment allegedly included three million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and more than 3,000 mortar rounds and mortar tubes....not exactly your average handguns. As we know, China has already been under international pressure for its investments financing the genocidal Sudanese regime.

The East African Law Society and the South African Development Community said they would be filing suit at the International Criminal Court to seek legal action against the Chinese government for the controversial shipment and, potentially for the court to investigate human rights abuses by the Zimbabwean government. Of course, China claims: "the shipment [was] a purely commercial transaction that broke no laws" and accused critics of wanting to "create conflict between China and African countries."

Not only does the ICC need to take this filing seriously, but the United Nations also must heed various world leaders' call (namely, Britain and the US) for an arms embargo. This will undoubtedly involve working with China so that the UN Security Council can take effective action as soon as possible to prevent further casualties to arise from this spiraling crisis.