• The international law principle and norm of Reponsibility to Protect places primary responsibility in the hands of the state to protect its people from crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. However where the state itself is the perpetrator of such heinous crimes, and/or fails or neglects to protect its people, the international responsibility to protect cannot be stopped by selfserving claims of sovereignty on the part of armed and predatory elites. The African Union has the responsibility to put in into place measures to protect. 40 5. The SADC Mediation: Where to? In response to the growing criticisms of the Mbeki- led SADC mediation on Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the region, SADC confirmed President Mbeki’s role as mediator. It is therefore clear that role of the South African President remains a key factor in the regional response to the Mugabe regime. Two options may be open to the mediator. Firstly there is the option of supporting the run-off and attempting to ensure that more open conditions than currently exist will be established before a second election. The major challenge facing this possibility is the enormous wave of violence that has been unleashed by the ruling party since the election. As the discussion of violence below indicates, much of the current attacks are centred in the Harare and Mashonaland areas, the latter of which has been considered a ZANU PF stronghold. Here the leadership and supporters of the MDC Tsvangirai are being beaten, maimed, killed and displaced in order to shift the balance of support back to Mugabe in the run-off. From Appendix One it is clear that many ZANU PF voters in rural Mashonaland adopted a dual voting strategy, voting for ZANU PF in the parliamentary election and for Tsvangirai in the presidential race. It is therefore no accident that the ruling party violence has been concentrated in these areas, and that the plan of violence set out at the Nkayi meeting on the 12th April 2008 has been rolling out since then. In the Matabeleland area the ZANU PF strategy has been different, concentrating more on threats, and the memories of the Gukurahundi massacres, than on the scale of violence that has been witnessed in Mashonaland. In areas like Lupane such threats have been expressed in slogans such as “One MDC vote one Bullet”, and in the use of lists, a particular symbol of the Gukurahundi violence, to warn people of impending brutality. The violence in Matabeleland has also been lessened by the influence of ex-Zipra members, and a few traditional leaders who have called for a more peaceful mobilization strategy. The central fact of this violence and the responsibility of Mugabe and his ruling party for this abomination must be understood by President Mbeki, if he is seeking to remove the blockages to a peaceful transition in Zimbabwe. It is therefore not helpful when members of his government attempt to avoid this fact by attaching blame for the violence to both ZANU PF and the MDC, as in the statement by SA Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma calling on “all parties to refrain from any acts of violence that could undermine the credibility of the run-off election.” 41 This is particularly the case when the South African President has been informed of the violence by the team of retired South African army generals he sent n to Zimbabwe to investigate the violence. As one member of the team observed: What we have heard and seen is shocking. We have heard horrific stories of extreme brutality and seen the victims. We have seen people with scars, cuts, gashes, bruises, lacerations and broken limbs, and bodies of those killed. It is a horrifying picture. 42 40 Communique of the African Emergency Summit on Zimbabwe, Dar es Salaam, 21 April 2008. “Dlamini-Zuma appeals for peace n Zimbabwe in countdown to run-off election.” Cape Times 14/05/08. 42 Dumisani Muleya, “Zimbabwe violence ‘shocks’ SA generals.” Business Day, 14/05/08. 41 18