A two-panel cartoon is currently circulating by the South African cartoonist Zapiro.

The first panel depicts President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi triumphantly showing the would-be putchist General Godefroid Niyombare the door, declaring “Burundi has shown that no general will seize power unconstitutionally!” The second panel shows Nkurunziza sitting comfortably on his presidential chair, reminding us that “… [seizing power unconstitutionally] is a president’s job.”

The cartoon makes us laugh. Because not to laugh is to despair. The East African Community, before its Heads of State Summit on Burundi, had commissioned a legal opinion on the third term.

It was clear what Nkurunziza was doing was wrong. Yet, the announcement of the attempted coup d’état during the Summit led only to the declaration that the attempted coup d’état amounted to an unconstitutional change of government — not that his standing for the third term amounted to the same thing.

The EAC Elders are trying — in vain — to mediate in Burundi. As disaster stares us in the face, all the Elders are able to call for is a delay in the elections — not Nkurunziza stepping down.

The impotence is unbelievable.

It is as unbelievable as the absence of follow-up to the report of the African Union’s pre-election assessment mission to Sudan that the holding of elections in the context of state repression was nothing short of farcical. Only about 30 per cent of the voters turned out — the combined civil society and opposition boycott worked, despite the extension of the balloting period.

So President Omar al Bashir is back — with his “legitimacy” pegged on a mere third of the registered voters. Which hasn’t stopped him from moving immediately on major military offensives in Darfur, the Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

The AU’s High Level Panel is stuck on the notion of “national dialogue” which the state, bolstered by the supposed “legitimacy” engendered by the elections, is simply refusing to entertain.

Meanwhile, to the South, had parliament not voted to change South Sudan’s Constitution to enable President Salva Kiir to remain in power an additional three years, his “legitimacy” would’ve ended in early July this past week. He is unbothered.

In defiance of all the cessation of hostilities agreements signed under the Intergovernmental Authority of Development, he’s now launched his own military offensive in Unity State. The stories from civilians affected are heartbreaking — the too familiar mayhem of abductions, disappearances, murders, gang rapes.

Yet again, nobody is holding Kiir to account. Yes, the AU and Igad have condemned the new military offensive and called, impotently, for sanctions. But, at the very same time, the International Conference of the Great Lakes this past week stated sanctions would be counterproductive and the Troika’s involvement in the Igad-plus mediation team was unnecessary.

It is unacceptable. If we do not value ourselves, how the hell do we expect others to do so?

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes