Tsvangirai urges U.N. intervention in Zimbabwe
HARARE —
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader pushed the UN on Monday to intervene to end his country’s election crisis as President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party flatly denied it was behind a rise in post-poll violence.
As 28 people appeared in court in Harare in connection with unrest during a general strike last week, the opposition accused the authorities of double standards by not pursuing Mugabe supporters with the same vigor.
Meanwhile the row over a partial recount of the March 29 poll, which could see the ruling ZANU-PF regain its majority in parliament, rumbled on as former colonial power Britain denounced it as an attempt to steal the election.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has already proclaimed himself the clear victor over Mugabe, made his demand for United Nations intervention directly to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as they met in Ghana.
Tsvangirai had requested the 30-minute meeting in Accra just before Ban departed for Liberia on the next leg of his current African tour, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
“The opposition leader complained about the deadlock and the deterioration of the humanitarian and political situation in the country,” she told journalists.
“He appealed for an intervention by the African Union and the United Nations since he feels there is no progress in efforts made” by the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), she added.
Tsvangirai last week called for South African President Thabo Mbeki to be stripped from his role as SADC mediator, frustrated at what he sees as an overly soft approach by the bloc toward veteran leader Mugabe.
However, SADC leaders meeting over the weekend in the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius gave their backing for Mbeki to continue in his role.
“We have complete faith in President Mbeki,” said Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam.
The MDC says the muted response of SADC and Mbeki, a long-time advocate of so-called “quiet diplomacy,” has emboldened Mugabe and his followers to clamp down on the opposition.
At a press conference on Sunday, the party’s secretary general Tendai Biti charged that 10 MDC supporters had been killed and thousands forced to flee their homes following attacks by pro-Mugabe vigilantes.
ZANU-PF’s chief spokesman, justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, said claims of politically-related killings were nonsense.
“As you know, people die of natural causes. What we refute is that anyone has died of politically-motivated violence at the hands of ZANU-PF,” Chinamasa told reporters.
While no one from ZANU-PF has been brought before the courts, 28 mainly MDC activists appeared before magistrates in Harare to face public order offenses in connection with last Tuesday’s general strike.
Their lawyers told the court that some of the defendants, who included women as well as men, had been beaten by soldiers and police in order to extract confessions.
The defendants all pleaded not guilty and were to apply for bail on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, criticism mounted of an ongoing vote recount of both the parliamentary and presidential elections in 23 of Zimbabwe’s 210 constituencies seen by the opposition as a bid to reverse their legislative victory.
Speaking to parliament in London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband questioned the security of the ballot boxes and said: “No-one can have any faith in this recount.”
Dianne Kohler-Barnard, a South African parliamentarian observing the recount as part of a regional monitoring mission, also dismissed the process as “fatally flawed” after returning from Zimbabwe.
A spokesman for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Utoile Silaigwana, said the recount, which began on Saturday, would take longer than the three days originally predicted but refused to give a precise day for its completion.
“We had expected the exercise to be completed within a minimum of three days, but with the developments on ground, where candidates are raising lots of issues ... it is now difficult to put a time,” Silaigwana said.
Mugabe, a former guerrilla leader and hero of the national liberation movement, has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980. At 84, he now is Africa’s oldest leader.
Once a model for the southern African region, Zimbabwe today is afflicted by an inflation rate running at over 165,000 percent and unemployment of more than 80 percent, while even basic foodstuffs are in short supply.
AFP
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Scrote
Mugabe refuses to recognise the results of the election. It's time for other governments to refuse to recognise him as the president of Zimbabwe, starting with the spineless Mbeki.
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skipthesong
time for other governments to refuse to recognise him" I think the problem lies with history.. The South African government, after being under apartied for so long, feel its their duty to roll with Mugabe as he basically puts his country's whites under the same type of system.. and should any western power intervene it would cause a back lash.. I think all the world can do is wait Mugabe's life out.
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frontandcentre
The longer Mugabe delays his inevitable political demise, the angrier the mobs are going to get. No statue is to big not to fall.
skipthesong - the irony is that it's the vast majority of the population - the black working class - that are by far suffering the most, not a few white people. The land grab was handled stupidly and was done simply to reward Mugabe's supporters, hence the almost total collapse of commercial agriculture in what was not long ago the 'Bread Basket of Africa'. Had it been a sensible and just reform process with compensation paid, no-one would have had too much reason to complain. Instead it was a crude political stunt, which did far more harm than good. The same applies to the banning of foreign investment. You are in the midst of a huge economic crisis and you ban foreign investment ? That's straight out of the Pol Pot school economic wisdom...
Mugabe's socialism seems to be creating equality by making everyone equally destitute
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redacted
The UN is hopeless. The Commonwealth won't life a finger.
Not surprisingly, China had hoped to cash in on the chaos and instability. and is arming Mugabe's thugs.
But look who is slapping them down -
"The Bush administration is intervening with governments in southern Africa to prevent a Chinese ship carrying weapons for Zimbabwe's security forces from unloading its cargo, The Associated Press has learned.
"At the same time, the State Department's top Africa hand, Jendayi Frazer, plans to visit the region this week to underscore U.S. concerns about the shipment. Frazer also will try to persuade Zimbabwe's neighbors to step up pressure on President Robert Mugabe's government to publish results from a disputed election that the opposition claims to have won, administration officials said Monday."
"U.S. intelligence agencies are tracking the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, and American diplomats have been instructed to press authorities in at least four nations — South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola — not to allow it to dock, the officials told The Associated Press."
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skipthesong
the black working class - that are by far suffering the most, not a few white people" Well, just be happy you are not one of them then. Still, I believe that any fixing to this situation is mostly bogged by what would be considered racist policies - Mugabe has the western powers right where he wants them.. As for any land grab being handled, it would have been better to make the whites till the land as a form of servitude. Personally, I can't fathom why they even stayed.
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skipthesong
now this is odd: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/22/us.zimbabwe.ap/index.html
China actually has a ship bringing weapons to Mugube's forces.. What do they seek there?
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unscrejects
Listen up y'all. Go back to October 1997 and see what the crisis is all about. The Zimbabwe story is going to make a Ludlum thriller look as interesting as "My Pet Goat". Remember how the reader ends up feeling a misture of pity and sorrow for Iago? Well you might just feel that way for one man in Zimbabwe some day.
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