Britain tells Mugabe: “You’re in for a big surprise”
LUSAKA/LONDON – International outrage, including crucially from African capitals, greeted the Mugabe regime and its brutality which forced Morgan Tsvangarai to withdraw from the presidential run-off.
At the United Nations and in Western capitals, the tone was harsh. And in Lusaka, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, current chairman of SADC, said it was “scandalous” for the 14-nation grouping of Southern African states to remain silent on the issue. He described Zimbabwe as “an embarrassment to us all,” adding the situation fell far short of SADC principles.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, longtime protector of the Zimbabwean dictator, took a characteristically wishy-washy line, saying the “political leadership of Zimbabwe should get together and find a solution.” As usual, Mbeki – no longer recognized by the MDC as a mediator because of his closeness to the junta – made no reference to the atrocities committed by Mugabe’s thugs, led by the heads of the military, prisons, and police.
Mwanawasa, annoyed with Mbeki, said the South African president had failed to brief him after meeting Mugabe in Harare before the pullout.
“I feel disappointed that as the (SADC) chairman I’m being denied information,” Mwanawasa told reporters. “I have to rely on my own intelligence reports gathered on Zimbabwe.”
Last week Tanzania, Angola and Swaziland jointly condemned the intimidation of the MDC. Botswana and Kenya, as well as a large of former African luminaries have also joined in the criticism.
At the United Nations, Britain, the United States and France, called on China – another of Mugabe’s dwindling band of international protectors – and Russia to join the condemnation. The European Union considered attempting tighter sanctions aimed at Zanu (PF) leaders, their finances and their children’s education in the West.
“If Mugabe thinks this finishes it, he’s in for a big surprise. He has united the world against him,” said Mark Malloch Brown, the British Foreign Office minister for Africa, Asia and the UN. “Mugabe remains de facto president but he is not by any stretch of international law, or political imagination, a legitimate leader.”
“This has turned into a complete thugs’ farce,” he added. “This time there were 211 African observers … This time, this is not about Mugabe against Britain. This is a challenge to all of us about the kind of world we want to live in, whether we are British, Russian, Chinese or South African.”
Britain, America and France agreed on a joint approach which would emphasis the status of the MDC as the only legitimate power in Zimbabwe on grounds it won control of Parliament in March.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, said the campaign of “violence and intimidation that has marred this election has done a great disservice to the people of the country, and must end immediately.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Mugabe used violence “to gag the people of Zimbabwe”. France, he added, was “ready to take, with its EU partners, all necessary measures against those responsible for this electoral masquerade.”
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, keen for the AU to take the leading role, discussed the crisis with AU Chairman Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, whose government has denounced the pre-election violence.
The AU and its designated negotiator Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, were instrumental in resolving the post-election crisis in Kenya earlier this year, finding a means for cohabitation of an incumbent president and an opposition-led government of national unity.
Britain’s opposition Conservative Party spokesman on foreign affairs spokesman William Hague called the Zanu (PF) regime “one of the world’s vilest and most despotic tyrannies.” “This is a criminal government and should now be treated as such.”
Post published in: News