Where nobody speaks out, murder becomes the norm

A month gone by, no corpse, thousands of words in the press, and nothing done.

How do you begin to understand the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey?

I’d start in Zimbabwe.

In 1983, Robert Mugabe sent a North-Korean-trained brigade to opposition strongholds near Bulawayo, and, over the next four years they slaughtered somewhere up to 20,000 people and rendered more than a million homeless.

The killings, now recognised as a genocide, were not condemned by a single world leader. The United Nations and regional groups in Africa, Asia and the Americas said nothing. No one has been brought to justice.

This begs the question: If Gukurahundi happened today, would the world say (or do) anything?

And if someone like struggle hero Steve Biko – murdered by the authorities in 1977 – died tonight in a police cell, would the African Union even comment? More likely we’d be told it was an “internal matter”.

Saudi Arabia escaped the Arab Spring that saw a change of government in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Unlike South Africa, it has never embraced democracy, though reform is under way, especially on the rights of women.

It was the same during apartheid in South Africa. There was a limit to what the world’s trading nations could do when their shipping had to pass the Cape sea route.

Or Pakistan, through which Western forces gain access to land-locked Afghanistan.

Ditto the tiny state of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, the only viable stop on a narrow strait that links the Indian Ocean to Suez. Much of the trade out of Asia, Australia and East Africa goes this route to and from Europe, along with five million barrels of oil per day from the Gulf.

Djibouti is ruled by Ismaïl Guelleh, now in his fourth term under a constitution that allowed only two until he changed it. The only two presidents since independence from France in 1976 have been Guelleh and his uncle.

At elections last year, his party took an improbable 88% of the vote. Critics say the opposition is mostly in exile while groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International allege that torture is rife. The press is largely under state control.

But it’s hard for governments to say much. The United States has a military base here, as does France. China has recently finished its own barracks with room for more troops than the other two combined. And there are smaller forts run by India, Italy, even Japan in its first venture abroad since World War ll.

Saudi, apartheid South Africa and, for much of its history, Zimbabwe, have all been friendly to business. But earlier this year, when Guelleh fell out with Dubai-firm DP World who ran his container port, he simply nationalised their assets. The state claims DP World was not performing well, a charge they deny.

Professor Gregory Stanton is one of the world’s top authorities on human rights and founder of Genocide Watch, an early warning system for crimes against humanity.

Whether lecturing at The Hague or to a committee of the United Nations, Stanton likes to quote his hero, Martin Luther King.