For the first time since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, the friendly Zambian government has made some statements that have come as close as one can get at condemnation of its southern neighbour. The other week, it was Zambia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Mundia Sikatana, who made some scathing statements in parliament against Zimbabwe's human rights abuses. It was clear that Mundia was not taking the usual African stand of being "neutral"; his statement was so unequivocal that someone had to cowardly stop him in mid-speech and ordered him to sit down. This dramatic event did not go unnoticed by the Zimbabwean government, of course, and they have reacted by deciding to send a delegation to present an official complaint to the Zambian government over Sikatana's statement.

But before the delegation could even meet the Zambian government, President Mwanawasa has also made an even more damning statement. In a speech delivered to SADC nations, President Mwanawasa has described Zimbabwe as "a sinking titanic". He has not directly said anything about the human rights abuses, deciding to focus more on the economic woes of the nation and its bleak future under Mugabe. This is a position that is clearly opposed to the propagandistic rhetoric of the Zimbabwean government, which believes somehow that their country is going up under Mugabe's policies, not sinking!

I am very glad to see the Zambian government, for the first time, take an honest stand on this very controversial issue. In the past, we have always taken either a wrong stand or no stand at all (which is even worse). Zimbabwe is our next door neighbour and what happens there affects us very directly. We can't afford to be silent when their people are being brutally assaulted and murdered by their mad and psychotic dictator, Robert Mugabe; and when they are running into our country for survival.

Unfortunately, our two past presidents have shown why we always took a wrong stand when they were in power. They have both commented on the Zimbabwean situation and like totally insane people, they have decided to side with Robert Mugabe! Kenneth Kaunda was the first one to speak, and of course, he blamed the "Western imperialists" for everything Mugabe is doing today. A week later, second president Frederick Chiluba literally echoed Kaunda's statements and even went further by actually condemning and cursing the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvingarai. "Cursed be the day he [Tsvangarai] was born and cursed be the day the [MDC] party was born," Chiluba said. I've always thought there was something wrong with our first two presidents, but this statement from the second president points to a scary psychiatric condition; his doctor in South Africa might want to take a look at that.

It was thus very relieving to see that the current president and the minister in charge of our dealings with Zimbabwe have condemned the situation in Zimbabwe with no equivocation. Both of these men are lawyers and they have a trained eye to identify clear human rights abuses, the kind that they both openly opposed during Chiluba's and (especially) Kaunda's rule. And they have both decided to just be honest, speaking the content of their minds instead of hiding behind the veil of international diplomacy. There is a time for diplomacy and there is a time for honesty; Mugabe has crossed the line where diplomacy rules. It's important that he knows that there are some countries in Africa that are willing to take a moral stand against him, and I am glad that Zambia is the first one to do it. Perhaps the other countries will for the first time have some moral guts to also speak the truth so that we can show the world that we are not all fools, but that there are some leaders on our continent who actually do think.

A few years ago, some African leaders (Mbeki, Wade and Obasanjo) came up with an idea called NEPAD that they hailed as Africa's final solution to its economic problems. This was an attempt to deal with the fact that Africa received by far the smallest share of Foreign Direct Investment from the developed countries, a situation that has largely been responsible for the continent's continuing decline in a world that is generally progressing. These leaders asked their counterparts in the most developed Western countries why their investors shun Africa so much, and they were told it's simply because of the appalling human rights record of African governments. Their companies were afraid of coming here and having their businesses suddenly nationalized, or having to live under undemocratic dictators, and so on. NEPAD was formed in response to this complaint. The NEPAD leaders promised to form a self-regulatory body of African nations. NEPAD would thus expel any nation that did not stick to democratic ideals and human rights tenets, knowing very well that no nation would like to be isolated from other African nations. The Western governments were impressed with this innovative plan, and promised to encourage their own investors to come to Africa, and of course, they even promised to build better infrastructure among the NEPAD member countries as further incentive for these investors.

The ink had hardly dried on the NEPAD agreement when Zimbabwe conducted its presidential elections, and every credible elections monitor reported clear human rights abuses and rigging by the Mugabe government. The Western leaders who had just come from signing the NEPAD agreement watched with keen curiosity to see how the NEPAD leaders and members would treat this situation. Zimbabwe was thus the first test for the NEPAD idea.

Unfortunately, the African countries in NEPAD had no moral courage to expel or even censure Zimbabwe. Instead we all sent congratulatory messages to Robert Mugabe and condemned "Western imperialists" for condemning Mugabe's election. Zimbabwe thus continued as a legitimate member of NEPAD!

Like a comedy straight from Hollywood, the NEPAD leaders went back to the Western governments and asked them why it was taking so long for them to fulfill their promises!

Nations that truly prosper are serious about human rights. Capitalism, the only economic system that causes sustainable economic development, is simply a philosophy of human rights. The reason a capitalist government does not believe in nationalizing a company is simply because this is a violation of the human rights of the private owner of that company; it is theft. The reason a capitalist government should not force businessmen to fix their prices at a certain level, or to fix wages at a certain point, is because these are human rights violations as well. If it's my product, I should decide its price. If it's my company, I should decide the wages of people who work for me, or they can go somewhere else. Capitalist governments, therefore, simply respect private property rights, and this is the only true meaning of respecting "economic" human rights.

Unfortunately, there is no country in the world that is perfect in observation of human rights, especially when it comes to wage control. However, those that have tried their best to respect human rights in general, have succeeded the most as societies. It begins with a strong moral ideology that pledges to respect all individuals and their choices. Zimbabwe has reached a point where it is one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, not just economically, but politically as well. A country that condemns Zimbabwe simply demonstrates to the rest of the world that it can't do what Zimbabwe is doing, and there is no better advertisement than this, for one who wants to attract the friendship and partnership of other civilized nations. The time for the old silly talk of "Western imperialism", "neocolonialism" and other such nonsense is over. It's time to take responsibility for our own actions and to realize that there is no one who owes us any development. They have their own interests, and rightly so, but so should we, instead of complaining that they have come to pursue their own interests!

Once again, congratulations to the President of Zambia and the Minister of Foreign Affairs for showing the rest of Africa that intellectual courage is possible.