Analysis United States cautious not to label Zimbabwe’s ‘bloodless correction’ a military coup as forces detain President Robert Mugabe
State Department officials were advised to avoid any such declaration as it could potentially trigger a cut-off of foreign aid to the African nation
No one likes to own up to a coup. It is usually nasty business and it can bring frowns and punishment from abroad, even when nations might be rooting for the coup leaders.
So it was this week as Zimbabwe’s military forces placed President Robert Mugabe and his wife under house arrest and sent armoured personnel carriers into the capital to cement control, all in service of what the army’s supporters called a “bloodless correction”.
A correction, not a coup? It may be too early to tell. But terms of art and squishy euphemisms are the norm in world affairs because words matter on that stage. They can mask the reality on the ground.
To recognise a “genocide” is to be expected to take consequential action to aid victims and bring perpetrators to justice. Like genocide, a “crime against humanity” is a crime under international law. The Trump administration has edged up to a determination that Myanmar’s brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims is “ethnic cleansing”, but so far stopped short.
Watch: After 37 years, Mugabe’s rule seems over
The United States uses rhetorical dodges to describe its own doings. It acknowledged using “enhanced interrogation”, not the forbidden “torture” even if the difference was not apparent to those who were waterboarded before such tactics were banned.