International pressure has been growing to isolate Mugabe’s regime, with calls not only for leaders to refuse to recognise Mugabe as the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe, but also for the country to be blocked from taking part in all international events.
The International Cricket Council was still in meetings on Thursday to decide the future of the Zimbabwean cricket team’s member status, following the recent decision by the South Africa team to sever bilateral links with their neighbours. The English team followed this decision shortly afterwards, with the British government cancelling the Zimbabwean’s scheduled tour of the country next year.
Meanwhile, following the decision by a German company to stop providing bank note paper to Zimbabwe last Friday, the German Crisis Action coalition forced the Zimbabwean embassy to withdraw from an “All Nations Festival”, a day when embassies in Berlin open their doors to the public.
The German coalition said in a statement released Thursday that it became aware of the Zimbabwe embassy’s plans to participate in the “All Nations Festival” and asked organisers to cancel the embassy’s participation.According to the statement, organisers refused to do so because it “would
break diplomatic rules”.
The group then announced that it would hold a rally outside the embassy on Thursday to protest its involvement, with members planning to wear black and to hand out black armbands to visitors to symbolise the death of democracy in Zimbabwe. The group said it was informed on Wednesday night that the
embassy had pulled out of the event, because of the planned protest. The action group then held a rally outside the South African embassy.