After listening to Renee Montagne interview Peter Godwin on NPR this morning, I immediately ordered his new book when I arrived home. There is one question that I’ve always had when it comes to Zimbabwe and international diplomacy since I began following the story very closely in 2000: How has such a blatant violation of human rights gone seemingly unnoticed for so long? Peter Godwin’s answer to that is sadly very simple, …that again is the skill of Mugabe. He sort of senses the point at which you can go so far and no further and you should pull back, because you’re about to topple over into some generalized sense of international outrage. And will you see the other thing he does, that he waits until there’s some other big international crisis that everybody is looking away at, and then does his dirty work.

After listening to Renee Montagne interview Peter Godwin on NPR this morning, I immediately ordered his new book when I arrived home. There is one question that I’ve always had when it comes to Zimbabwe and international diplomacy since I began following the story very closely in 2000: How has such a blatant violation of human rights gone seemingly unnoticed for so long?

Peter Godwin’s answer to that is sadly very simple,

…that again is the skill of Mugabe. He sort of senses the point at which you can go so far and no further and you should pull back, because you’re about to topple over into some generalized sense of international outrage. And will you see the other thing he does, that he waits until there’s some other big international crisis that everybody is looking away at, and then does his dirty work.
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