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Global pressure to replace Mugabe grows
Published: June 23 2008 23:26
The withdrawal of Morgan Tsvangirai, from the Zimbabwean presidential election has galvanised the international community to try to find ways of punishing Robert Mugabe’s regime.
But while there was plenty of anger yesterday in Washington, London and Brussels – and even some African capitals – it was far from clear what kind of pressure could effectively be applied.
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Britain, the US and the European Union united in saying that they would no longer recognise Mr Mugabe’s government as legitimate.
As reports emerged of fresh violence in Harare, some African leaders also stiffened their rhetoric. But officials from Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) feared it was unlikely that African states would go as far as withdrawing recognition from Mr Mugabe if he claims victory in Friday’s poll.
In some of the toughest words on Zimbabwe yet from an African leader, Levy Mwanawasa, the Zambian president and current chairman of the Southern African Development Community, described the situation in Zimbabwe as “a matter of serious embarrassment to all of us”.
He said it would be “scandalous for the SADC to remain silent”.
Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general and now among a group of African elders vying for a solution to the Zimbabwe crisis, said the “victor emerging from such a flawed process will have no legitimacy to govern Zimbabwe”.
The response from the African Union, however, was more muted. Jean Ping, the AU’s top diplomat, said Mr Tsvangirai’s withdrawal and “increasing acts of violence” were a “matter of grave concern”.
Senior MDC figures say they will begin pushing in coming days for international backing for the creation of a transitional government – possibly headed by an AU leader – to sit for a limited period while organising fresh elections, stabilising the economy and alleviating food shortages.
That would, however, require Mr Mugabe to stand down – an outcome that, the ageing autocrat said last week, only God could bring about.
It would also require a transformation in the regional mediation efforts led by South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki.
Mukoni Ratshitanga, Mr Mbeki’s spokesman, was still holding out hope for South Africa’s policy of quiet diplomacy. “We will continue to engage the Zimbabwean political leadership – both parties – to find a solution,” he said.
There is also the question of what, if anything, Zimbabwe’s neighbours could do, even if they determined to loosen the Mugabe grip on power. They have eschewed sanctions in the past – unlike the US and European Union – and would, in any case, have difficulty making economic measures bite in a country already in financial ruin.
Britain yesterday said that there was scope for a new raft of sanctions against Zimbabwe that carefully targeted the leading figures in the Mugabe regime and were more global in scope than those previously introduced.
In a briefing for journalists, Lord Malloch Brown, the minister for Africa in Gordon Brown’s government, said sanctions could be imposed against the financial assets of members of Mr Mugabe’s administration; against their ability to travel without risk of arrest on human rights grounds; or against the foreign studies of children of the members of Mugabe’s inner circle.
He added that these sanctions could also be extended to force British companies to cut links with Zimbabwe.
While sanctions had been previously introduced by the EU and US, there was more that could be done by Asia and Africa, Lord Malloch Brown added.
“Our objectives are to get in every forum possible a recognition that today President Mugabe no longer remains the proper rightful leader of the country,” he told reporters.
The crisis in Zimbabwe may well be raised at a string of international events over the next few days, such as the Group of Eight foreign ministers meeting in Japan and the African Union summit in Sharm El-Sheik.
Lord Malloch Brown said that he would be waiting to see what action is taken by SADC. “The moral prestige of SADC has been challenged as has that of the AU and it will be interesting to see what they come up with.”
Reporting by Tom Burgis in Johannesburg, William Wallis and James Blitz in London
