Zimbabwe intervention calls mount
HARARE —
Calls for international intervention to defuse Zimbabwe’s post-election crisis mounted on Tuesday as the U.S. urged China to call back a ship loaded with weapons for President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
As church leaders in the troubled southern African nation warned rising violence could reach genocidal levels, the government in Beijing defended its sales of arms but hinted the cargo might not be delivered.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon meanwhile described the continued delay in announcing results for the March 29 presidential election as unacceptable, while Australia called an ongoing recount a ploy by Mugabe to steal victory.
Reports of violence have been steadily increasing since polling day with the opposition claiming 10 of its followers have been killed by pro-Mugabe militias and thousands have been forced to flee their homes.
In a joint statement, signed by the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, church leaders all called for outside help to end the unrest.
“Organized violence perpetrated against individuals, families and communities who are accused of campaigning or voting for the ‘wrong’ political party ... has been unleashed throughout the country,” the statement said.
“We warn the world that if nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and other hot spots in Africa.”
It urged the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union and the United Nations to work towards “arresting” the deteriorating political and security situation.
The 14-nation SADC and the African Union have both come under fire for their muted response so far to the crisis.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who appealed for U.N. intervention on Monday when he met Ban, has grown so frustrated with the SADC that he has called for its pointman on Zimbabwe, South African President Thabo Mbeki, to be axed as a mediator.
In comments to reporters on Tuesday, Ban said: “It is unacceptable that the results of the presidential election in Zimbabwe are not being officially announced even three weeks after the election.”
Mugabe’s regime insists other countries stay out of its internal affairs and has dismissed talk of genocide by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change as “lies.”
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa also defended Zimbabwe’s “sovereign right” to buy arms amid the ongoing row over the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, which is understood to be carrying millions of rounds of AK-47 ammunition and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades ordered by Mugabe.
An attempt to offload the cargo in the South African port of Durban had to be abandoned last Friday when activists won a court order effectively preventing the cargo being transported over land to the Zimbabwe border.
There were signs that China—already under fire over its supply of weaponry to Sudan for use in Darfur—was getting ready to scrap the delivery.
“As Zimbabwe could not receive the cargo as scheduled, China Ocean Shipping Corp had to give up the Durban port and is now considering carrying back this cargo,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the Bush administration had asked Beijing “to refrain from making additional shipments and, if possible, to bring this one back.”
A U.S. embassy spokeswoman in Pretoria said the top U.S. envoy for Africa, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, was due to begin a tour of the region from Wednesday.
Zimbabwe, meanwhile, indefinitely postponed an annual summit of Africa’s largest trading bloc that it was to host next month due to the electoral uncertainty in the country, state radio reported Tuesday.
The two-week summit of the 19-nation Common Market for Eastern and Southern African (COMESA) had been scheduled to run between May 1-15 in the northwestern resort of Victoria Falls.
“The postponement follows the realization that the original summit dates might coincide with the country’s yet uncompleted electoral process,” state radio cited a foreign affairs ministry statement as saying.
The statement said a new date for the summit would be announced later.
Wire reports
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bebert
Uh, just about 30 years too late to save Rhodesia.
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Zaphod
There won´t be any intervention. Mugabe will live out his natural life, and he still looks pretty genki. Yes, liberation has been a great success for Rhodesia.
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skipthesong
There won't be any intervention.. The Western Powers would not risk the ramifications of throwing a country that has over come white oppression.
Besides, it is hight time the US and the rest of the world end intervention, it has gotten them nowhere.
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unscrejects
****Intervention? How?
bebert - remember IDS? He went out singing "I was right about Mugabe". Only problem is, he was the problem. Remember him asking the South African Parliament to crash Zimbabwe's economy? Forgot? 1981. He said you can do it in 3 months and Mugabe will be history. Well the South Africans promptly informed Bob and... Scary though how all the obituries forgot that Smith sought the help of another country to destroy his own. This is precisely what has happened to Zimbabwe again. Zimbabweans - white and black destroyed their own economy in return for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver. They took money to collapse their economy. Standard Chartered Bank of South Africa was the architect of the plot. See the Herald - Nov. 2 1997. The entire plot is exposed. ANd Mugabe didn't arrest any farmer or business owner for accepting the South African money offers to topple him. African leaders also joined - in return for harboring Zimbabwean farmers for 18 months they got huge cash amounts - Chisano, Masire, Obasanjo et al...
So how can they call Mugabe a beast? Zimbabweans are dying - who is causing it? Their actions definitely constitute crimes against humanity. There is no saint in Africa. And Australia, New Zealand, Britain and a certain Asian country know the real story about Zimbabwe's crisis hence this talk of intervention is total pig swill.
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