"South Africa deserves a yellow card" - for not sorting out Zimbabwe?

[DeckTheHallsWithBling]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5348676.ece?Submitted=true

I am gobsmacked by this. Completely. The journalist is suggesting that SA should be punished by taking the world cup away from them because they haven't sorted out Zimbabwe. She makes good points about the fact that other African countries have been completely ignored and that there is a weird obsession about Zimbabwe in the UK media that is out of proportion to what else is happening on the continent, then perpetuates that by suggesting South Africa should be punished for Zim.

South Africa should be doing as much as possible and I have concerns about whether they're doing enough, but i didn't see England calling for neighbouring countries in Eastern Europe or the Middle East to be punished for things going on in their neighbours?

Zimbabwe will continue along the same path until Mwgabe dies.

Nothing anyone does will change this.

SA has enough problems of it's own. SA is so violent its scary. I know of a number of people who have left SA because they are positive that the taking of land that has happend in other parts of Africa will start to happen there on a bigge scale than it is already. I am afraid that only God can sort out Zimbabwe, but if they suddenly find huge reserves of oil then I am sure we will be in there ASAP to 'help' them.

That article is appallingly written and the latter half (its conclusion) seems to bear absolutely no relation to the first half.

Her argument seems to be that as the "regional superpower" South Africa is under some sort of obligation to step into solve neighbouring countries' problems. Regardless of whether this is the case or not (and given South Africa's pretty serious domestic problems I think it's bloody unlikely that it is), this is an utterly bollocks argument which has no precedent in international law or relations.

Countries typically intervene in other countries' affairs because (a) there is some sort of international will or legal requirement that they do so, e.g. UN resolution or (b) they have been asked to do so by the government of that country (e.g. Britain's intervention in Sierra Leone).

There is also a dubious argument that there may be the case where there is a moral imperative to intervene where one country has clear connections to another (e.g. colonial ties) but this is very dubious and in reality would be dealt with under the first set of scenarios.

What there pretty clearly isn't, is a requirement that a bigger country in a certain geography intervenes in the politics of another country just because it's bigger and slightly less unstable and happens to be next door to the smaller country. If anyone actually gave a toss about Zimbabwe and its people then the international community would do something about it. As it is, it's far far easier to say "Uh, this looks tricky and let's face it lads, it doesn't really affect us directly" so let's just throw up our hands in horror, make pious statements and pass the ball to South Africa .

The world sits back and does nothing about Darfur Zimbabwe, the Congo etc (no oil wealth).

The bully boys of the world invade Iraq based on fabricated evidence (lots of oil)

I rest my case.

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