by Walter Onubogu

Created on: June 24, 2008

I believe that the great powers,except for "humanitarian " reasons shouldn't interfere in the affairs of other countries or violate their national sovereignty. It is counter-productive to the intersts of the countries involved.

The reasons for that are as follows:

1. Nature of Regime Change:

Certain writers like Michael Ignatieff have strongly argued in favour of intervention against what they describe are "tyrannical - repressive" regimes in the developing world. They equate intervention to liberation of the oppressed people there. However one should maintain caution against this over generalisation, because it evokes questions about which country qualifies for "regime change" and which criteria are applicable, if these can be tweaked and under which circumstances.

If we look at Iraq we can clearly see how regime change has gone wrong. On the false pretext of WMds (that never existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein) America deliberately violated Iraq's sovereignty to pursue an agenda of regime change, so as to install a pro-Western pro American client regime in Iraq and exploit its oil resources and gain a strong strategic foothold in the Middle East.Considerable damage has already been done as a result of that. Not only Iraq has suffered greatly due to the ensuing power vaccum, turmoil and factionalism, but also America's reputation and prestige have rapidly shrunk thanks to war mongering George Bush.

So if Saddam's despotism qualified it for regime change, how come Zimbabwe isn't seen to be a candidate as well ? That is where in my view double standards come to play and undermine America, Britain's or France's claims to regime change. Zimbabwe's crises has been ongoing since 1998 ( and accelrated ever since autocratic President Mugabe forcibly seized white owned land and systemtically disenfranchised and repressed the democratic opposition) and all big players have been and are aware of it.

Now if they are so concerned about the freedom and democratic rights of Zimbabweans, why dont they either militarily intervene and or sponsor a coup d'etat to remove Mugabe from power? Well I will tell you why, Zimbabwe hasn't got oil and strategic value to Britain, US, France ect, thats why they opted for the cheap option of providing moral support without action.

Likewise it is apparent that UK, France, USA can only seek regime change with countries that are perceived to be weak - quite deficient and declining powerwise, obviously China is not one of them. So the West has no

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