Look at the kubatana.net website at the index of articles and images of post-election 2008 violence in Zimbabwe. Look at the pictures of opposition workers, of men, women and children who were singled out by members of a government army patrol and youth militia and beaten, battered, burnt and tortured, and then tell me that any action taken against Robert Mugabe would be an "extreme measure".

TAMARA SCOTT-WILLIAMS

Look at the pictures of the children with their eyeballs beaten out, or the men and women so tortured that entire chunks of their buttocks have fallen off. Look at the pictures of wounds unable to heal because of the withholding of medical treatment. Look at the burnt faces and bodies, the whipped backs, the broken limbs, the burnt-out homes and displaced citizens. And then after you recover from the sickening feeling, tell me why Robert Mugabe should continue to enjoy the title "The Right Honourable" and membership in the Order of Jamaica.

I've tried to think of a convincing justification for the prime minister's sentiment that the current situation in Zimbabwe doesn't warrant the Jamaican Government stripping President Robert Mugabe of the Order of Jamaica - the fourth highest rank in our national honours system - awarded to him.

Perhaps, I thought, because the honour was conferred on Mugabe during a former prime minister's time, the matter would require some formal discussion with P J Patterson as to how and when to strip Mugabe of the title. But then I thought, no, Golding should not confer with Patterson about the symbolic punishing of the leader of a country under whose watch the extermination of members of its citizenry occurred because of their opposing political views.

Mugabe was awarded the OJ in 1996 "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the fight for liberation and the overthrow of apartheid in Southern Africa, and his distinct leadership in the pursuit of freedom and human development throughout the African continent". At great risk to his own life, during the 1970s, Mugabe led a seven-year guerilla war against the white-minority rule of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and sought and won the freedom and independence of his people in 1980. He was hailed a hero and a freedom fighter and lauded internationally.

Perhaps, I thought, Golding's rationale might be that the honour should remain with Mugabe because it represents a particular period of Mugabe's life and his significant struggle on behalf of the Rhodesian people during that time. But no, seven years of struggle is no pay forward for 28 years of the worst kind of dictatorship.

Granted, Mugabe's greatest achievement was in educating his people - Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa at 85 per cent of the population - but it takes very different skills to manage a war than it does to run a country, and in a bid to hold on to power he has derailed democracy by rigging elections, muzzling the press, and bulldozing the homes of supporters of the political opposition.

He has used food as a weapon against opposition supporters and has turned a blind eye to the state's brutally violent crackdown on dissent. And finally he has wrecked the Zimbabwean economy to the point where at least 80 per cent of Zimbabweans are now living below the poverty line. As educated as the Zimbabwean people are, primal fear and hunger even kept them from exercising their franchise.

I can only reason that Prime Minister Golding won't interfere in the politics of another country because he feels he must set his own house in order first and seek to bring to justice those home-grown thugs who continue to murder the Jamaican people.

To that end, I welcome the Government's announcement of harsh penalties in the roll-out of the anti-crime plan. And I stand firmly in the prime minister's corner when he says, "I listen to some of my friends in the human rights organisations and I get a sense that what we really ought to do is go in with some powder puffs, and we really ought to sit down and engage these people to persuade them that we must stop killing off people."

Bravo, prime minister. When the human rights activists were busy, as he put it, "picking out" what interests they were going to pursue, some 27 of our own people lay dead and dying in West Kingston, with their skin peeling away at their bodies, and their flesh being eaten by dogs.
Grrrrrrrrrrr. Go get 'em, tiger.

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