Jeff Flake: “I had the great privilege in the early 1980s of spending time in Zimbabwe just soon after the transition to…”

“I had the great privilege in the early 1980s of spending time in Zimbabwe just soon after the transition to independence. There was great hope at that point. The people had hoped that the rule of law and democracy would flourish and take hold. Twenty years later, that has not been the case. We have a brutal dictator there who simply does not want to give up power. He does not want to assent to the rule and to the will of the people. That is unfortunate. With this legislation we hope, and the purpose of it is, to help those forces in Zimbabwe who want to bring back democracy and the rule of law. I want to caution my colleagues, all of us, to avoid the kind of drive-by diplomacy that often characterizes our action in Africa and other third world countries, when we will pay attention when the issue is hot; and then after a successor regime comes in, we forget about the country and move on, sometimes leaving sanctions in place or other items that the successor regime has to work out of.”