Also in chapter 3, I propose a general rule of thumb: Any government which is controlled by a country’s military or otherwise ruled by force is by definition not a legitimate government and does not need to be recognized as such by the world community.

Bearing these sentiments in mind, I watched in dismay as, first in Kenya and then in Zimbabwe, violent ethno-political strife was triggered when an opposition party leader apparently won a Presidential election and the ruling party refused to concede. In both cases, neither the African Union nor the United Nations was able to provide effective peacekeeping or conflict resolution.

In Kenya, impartial observers stated there was clear evidence of ballot rigging in the Presidential election held in the last week of December, 2007. The ruling party’s incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, won by a very slight margin; if the election had not been rigged, then presumably the opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, would have won indisputably. The immediate aftermath of the rigged election was a horrible bloodbath that dragged on for two months until the opposing sides eventually agreed to a power-sharing arrangement in the government at the end of February 2008. Former United Nations Secretary-General Khofi Annan did a great thing: he was able to negotiate peace where none seemed possible. Ending the violence was more important than any political outcome, and rightly so.

Unfortunately this set a terrible precedent, for now disgruntled factions in emerging democracies the world over have seen that violence, not the will of the people, may determine the outcome of an election.

Zimbabwe held its own Presidential election on March 29, 2008, just a month after the resolution of the crisis in Kenya. International observers generally agreed that the initial Zimbabwe election was conducted properly; but then the ruling government, headed by President Robert Mugabe, refused to release the election results for more than a month, leading many observers both within and outside the country to believe that the opposition party had probably won, and that Mugabe was stalling so he could rig the results in his own favor. Meanwhile, there were indications that Mugabe had launched a campaign of violent intimidation against opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai’s supporters, even before the election results were announced. Eventually Tsvangirai had no choice but to agree to a runoff election; and that is when the full-fledged crimes against humanity began in earnest.

The army and police forces as well as groups of Mugabe’s thugs carried out a brutal campaign of violence against Tsvangirai’s supporters, with systematic beatings, widespread arrests, torture, and politically motivated rape and murder of innocent civilians. By the time the "runoff election" took place, at least 86 Tsvangirai supporters had been murdered (some say the number is closer to 100), about 5,000 people were abducted, and some 200,000 people had been forced from their homes by Mugabe loyalists. In the end, Tsvangirai was forced to withdraw from the election and take refuge in the Dutch embassy to avoid being arrested on charges of treason; "treason" in this case meaning "daring to be the opposition candidate." Though some criticized Tsvangirai’s decision to withdraw, I believe it was the most noble decision he could have made, for although in the end he could not stop the violence, withdrawing from the sham election was at that point the only thing he could do to try to protect his supporters’ lives.

On June 27, Mugabe went ahead and held the runoff election unopposed; and he used the army, police, threats and intimidation to force people to go to the polls and vote for him. Rural voters were warned that failure to vote would cost them benefits or even their farms. Some villagers were driven to the polling stations by the army or by the henchmen of the ruling party. Many voters reported that, far from being a secret ballot, elections workers were writing down the names of everyone who voted, and who they voted for. Members of the opposition party who did make it to the polling places found that their voter registration had been suspended. Meanwhile, reporters for Reuters and al-Jazeera news agencies were arrested. Click here to read more about what a sham the election was.

Months later, the two sides have agreed to hold talks, but those talks are going nowhere, and should not reasonably be expected to go anywhere.

All this is worse than disturbing: it is disgusting, as is the world community’s failure to act in response. There have been one or two verbal condemnations, and the imposition of economic sanctions which will hurt the people worse than they hurt the government; but nothing was done to stop the violence while it was ongoing. This seems to fit a pattern of inaction by the world community in the face of blatant ongoing crimes against humanity. In keeping with the general rule of thumb proposed above, I believe that by using violence to retain power, Mugabe’s government has lost any claim to legitimacy: it is now unquestionably a dictatorship, not a democracy.

Bearing all this in mind I find myself grappling with the question, when is it appropriate to intervene? I feel let down that after decades of ongoing violence the world continues to stand idly by and watch while atrocities are committed in Africa.

Yet any intervention would certainly have let to additional loss of life, even if the long-term result of that intervention was relative stability.

I understand that in its present form the United Nations does not have the necessary authority for rapid response deployment of peacekeeping forces with kill orders; and throughout chapter 3 I advocate changing the UN charter to make sure it will be able to do this in the future. I understand that this is a long-term goal; but it is critical for the well-being of people around the world.

Although such a thing could not be compelled from the outside, I would also advocate a revision of the African Union charter, to make that continent an economically and politically unified community like the European Union and the United States of America. The federalization of Africa could potentially create a more effective local peacekeeping system to safeguard elections processes and to protect civilians from militias. The economic benefits could also help to improve standards of living in one of the poorest regions of the world, a region possessed of a wealth of the world’s biodiversity, a region with a long terrible history of slavery, colonialism, and conflict; a region with a projected future of environmental calamity due to the effects of global climate change.

While calling for amendments to the U.N. and A.U. charters, I continue to struggle with the philosophical question of when intervention is appropriate. At what threshold does a local disturbance become a crime against humanity? How will the international communities recognize such situations early, without impeding the rights of the people? I feel that this threshold was crossed in both of the elections described above, but I have been unable to agree with myself about what mechanism should trigger the deployment of international peacekeeping forces and what specific plan should be followed in such a deployment. I welcome readers’ thoughts on this matter.