The Neighbours' Business?

I see in the Economist that Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the UN, has stated that “southern Africa’s leaders must do more to resolve the impasse” in Zimbabwe. This idea appears never to be questioned in fora of public debate, yet to me it seems a little curious. Without any particular knowledge of public international law or diplomacy, I do not know the basis of the principle that a failure to respect the results of an election in a given country gives rise to responsibility on the part of neighbouring countries to remedy the situation. In fact there appear to be counter-examples. The recently-resolved crisis in Belgium was in some ways diametrically opposed to that in Zimbabwe, in that the crisis was not caused by the refusal of a losing government to stand down but the difficulty in identifying a replacement one. Nonetheless, during the ten-month interregnum there was never any suggestion that France or Germany should take a hand. Similarly the disputed Florida vote count which might have led to Al Gore’s winning the 2000 Presidential election was left to the American machinery of government to resolve: no-one proposed that the Canadians or Mexicans should step in.

Any statements about Zimbabwe from a First World government probably risk being characterised as neo-colonialism. Also, it may well be fair to consider that Zimbabwe’s immediate neighbours bear the brunt of its exodus of refugees, which in itself should give them some sort of right to express an opinion. If I keep my house badly enough, at some point it becomes the neighbours’ business.