In the past several weeks, Robert Mugabe has announced that he will ban American and EU observers from documenting the upcoming presidential election in Zimbabwe (though he has invited representatives from China, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia). His country’s inflation rate has surpassed 100,000%. The harassment of journalists, civil-society activists, and opposition politician continues unabated. Does any of this information move South Africa, governed by the African National Congress?

A place to look would be President Thabo Mbeki’s weekly email bulletin. A brief search through the archive shows that he has not bothered to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Zimbabwe for months. This week, however, on the verge of what will be a rigged election in Zimbabwe, Mbeki takes the time to plead that Israel “stop the collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and end its “punishing blockade of Gaza.” Given that a country halfway around the world defending itself from daily terrorism invokes such anger in President Mbeki, perhaps he could work up a measurable degree of outrage about the crimes against humanity committed by the evil man immediately to this north.