From South Africa to Nigeria, leaders from all around Africa are saying “no” to pressure on Zimbabwe’s Mugabe for his eviction of hundreds of thousands. The African Union itself has said, “If it is in the interests of the Zimbabwean government to prevent crime or improve sanitation or ensure the health of the people or ensure Harare is not turning into another slum, I do not see how the AU should take over the internal legislation of the government.” You may be thinking, “Slum? You mean the one Mugabe created himself? Are these people ignorant?” But obviously, they are not. The BBC nails it dead on:

Foreign ministers from the G8 grouping of the world’s richest and most powerful countries have called on other African leaders to denounce the forced evictions which are causing so much suffering in Zimbabwe.

Yet many of those other African governments have overseen similar brutal evictions in their own countries, and yet have suffered very little outside criticism.

The sad truth is that what is going on in Zimbabwe at the moment is not at all unusual.

From one end of Africa to the other, governments have set about slum clearance schemes without any consideration for the people who live there, or any sense of responsibility for what happens to them afterwards.

Read the whole article. It’s sad, but true.