Africa disgraced

It is a sad day for rights and democratic aspirations when Zimbabwe's Mugabe is welcomed in the African Union summit, writes Ayman El-Amir* After three days of hand wringing and inconclusive backroom consultations, the leaders of the African Union (AU) left the Zimbabwean presidential crisis unresolved. It all began when Robert Mugabe re-elected himself president of Zimbabwe for a sixth term in a one- man election runoff that left the world in shock and outrage. Before the election, nearly five million Zimbabweans had fled the country out of starvation or to avoid the prospect of being bludgeoned by Mugabe's thugs -- code-named war veterans -- for supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Those who remained behind were bullied into marching to polling stations to re-elect the man who ruined what was once... [read full story]