Day: November 12, 2002

The Proper European Response to Zimbabwe

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has the right take on how the United States and Europe should handle members of Zimbabwe’s government who travel abroad — they should be arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.

A recent report by the ICG said,

The EU and the US should use the International Convention Against Torture to arrest senior members of Zanu PF responsible for Zimbabwe having one of the highest rates of torture in the world if these individuals do travel into their jurisdiction without the benefit of international legal immunity.

. . .

The international response is still characterised by too much bark and too little bite. More credible targeted sanctions, wider, deeper and better enforced than those presently in place in the US and the EU are a necessary start.

The situation in Zimbabwe, meanwhile, keeps devolving on a daily basis. When food aid is not being outright blocked by the ruling party, an ongoing fuel crisis is making it difficult to distribute aid.

In just five years, Zimbabwe’s total economic output has declined by 25 percent. Zimbabwe is going to be feeling a lot of pain for many years to come, even once Mugabe is out of the picture.

Source:

Arrest Visiting Zanu Pf Officials, Urges Think-Tank. Luke Tamborinyoka, The Daily News (Harare, Zimbabwe), November 12, 2002.

Wynona Ryder Treated Unfairly?

For the most part, I tried to ignore the Wynona Ryder trial. Because of her celebrity status, her shoplifting trial received coverage way out of proportion to what it deserved. But what to make of the results of a poll in which women said Ryder was treated unfairly because she was a woman,

A new the polling company?, inc/WomanTrend poll conducted September 23-25, 2002 of 800 American women across the nation found that 75% believe successful women are more likely to receive negative attention when accused of improper conduct than men who are accused of the same, and 87% say that while women are ridiculed and criticized for doing something bad, or unfavorable, men earn a ?cool? or ?humorous? image from acting in the same form of behavior.

Right, because news coverage of Robert Downey Jr.’s drug problem has been filled with laughs and insinuation that Downey was “cool” for waking up in a drug addled stupor in his neighbor’s house.

WomanTrend CEO Kellyanne Conway inanely added,

Their celebrity status does not exonerate them from being treated as a woman in times of crisis. Seventy-six percent (76%) think Winona Ryder is the most recent case study illustrating this point. Like others, Kathie Lee Gifford, Martha Stewart, Drew Barrymore, Halle Berry and Jennifer Capriati, to name a few, women generally like Winona, and empathize with her, feeling that she is being treated improperly.

Okay, she’s got a point there. Male executives at companies like WorldCom, Enron, and ImClone got a free pass from the media, leaving them to focus exclusively on Martha Stewart.

The reason Ryder and Stewart are front page news is not because they receive special treatment, but precisely because they do not receive any special favors from the media. Instead, celebrity status guarantees obsessive examination of even minor missteps regardless of sex.

Source:

Women denounce double standard applied to the sexes by law enforcement, media, public. The Polling Company, September 27, 2002.