Zimbabwe condemns G8 sanctions move

Zimbabwe condemns G8 sanctions move
Wed Jul 9, 2008 3:43pm EDT
By Cris Chinaka

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe denounced the Group of Eight rich nations' support for sanctions on its officials on Wednesday as part of a colonial and racist effort led by Britain and the United States to install a puppet government.

A draft U.N. resolution calling for sanctions on President Robert Mugabe's government would include an arms embargo and financial and travel restrictions on 14 officials.

"We condemn this colonial and racist campaign against our country and government, but we are also very cognizant that it is Britain and the United States who are leading this campaign whose ultimate goal is to have their puppets in power," Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said.

The two Western allies successfully lobbied their G8 partners at a summit this week to back sanctions on Zimbabwe's leadership for holding a violent June 27 presidential poll boycotted by opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai.

They say Mugabe's re-election was a sham and want the 15-nation U.N. Security Council to also punish the 84-year-old ruler. Washington and other Western capitals are pushing for the council to vote for sanctions this week.

"There should be no safe haven and no hiding place for the criminal cabal that now make up the Mugabe regime," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a news conference at the end of the G8 summit in Japan.

Ndlovu said the issue did not belong in the council because Zimbabwe was not a threat to world peace and security -- a line also taken by council member South Africa.

Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said during a visit to Burkina Faso -- also currently on the council -- that the government was ready for talks with the opposition on forming a unity government including all parties.

He also fiercely criticized talk of sanctions.

"Zimbabwe has had free and fair elections ... it's the voice of the Zimbabwean people which counts. We can't receive instructions from our former colonial masters. We are an independent country and we will never, never go back to being a colony," Mumbengegwi said.

SECURITY COUNCIL VOTE

Regional mediator Thabo Mbeki, president of neighboring South Africa, said on South African Broadcasting Corporation radio that Britain supported efforts to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis through talks.

"For us ... that is the important thing, confirmation by everybody of support for this position," he said.

Zimbabwe state radio reported that South Africa's ruling ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and his party's secretary-general Gwede Mantashe met Mugabe and his two vice presidents in Harare for a briefing on the crisis.

Jacob Zuma, who succeeded Mbeki as ANC President in December, has been one of Mugabe's most vocal critics.

Western powers say there is a bare majority of nine Security Council members to pass the resolution but its fate rests with veto-wielding China and Russia, which have supported the South African position.

Western diplomats hoped China would not want to cause controversy weeks before the Beijing Olympics, and would abstain. They were uncertain about Russia, which signed onto the G8 statement but has expressed misgivings about sanctions.

Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, won a first round poll on March 29 but fell short of the absolute majority needed for outright victory.

He withdrew six days before the run-off because of violence by pro-Mugabe militias that the MDC said killed 103 of its supporters. Mugabe blames his opponents for the bloodshed.

There is wide international consensus on the need for talks to solve the impasse, which threatens to deepen the economic crisis in Zimbabwe. The country is suffering food and fuel shortages and the world's worst inflation rate of at least 2 million percent.

But there is sharp disagreement as to the framework of talks, with Western powers and Tsvangirai demanding the March elections be used as the basis for negotiations and Mugabe saying the opposition must accept his re-election.

MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday the party was not willing to speak to Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF as long as the June 27 result stood.

"To be able to sanitize that grand robbery, that grand kleptocracy, will never happen," Biti told SABC radio.

Tsvangirai says the opposition will not participate in negotiations until Mugabe's government halts the violence against his supporters and accepts his victory in March.

I don't know, this just made me laugh. Imagine being condemned by the Zimbabwe government? If I were to be condemned by them, and they gave me a certificate, I'd get it framed and hang it on the wall.

I don't know about you, but if I got like a little genie in a bottle, and I rubbed the bottle and he popped out and said "I'll allow you to kick three people of your choice square in the gnads," I know the first one would be Robert Mugabe. The third one would probably be him too. Not sure about the second one yet.

hopefully Mugabe'll just drop dead soon.

He is getting on in years. You'd think at 84 he'd want to call it quits, but I guess he knows as soon as he steps down some mo fo will come in and have him executed.

problem is with lierally hundreds of people dying on a daily basis I don't know if we can wait for this lunatic to drop off the perch after all it's only the good that die young.

If the West wants to crank up the pressure they should sanction the African countires that support Mugabe might seem hard but giving money and aid to a country that suports a murderous regime is wrong.

Yeah. Everything that goes out there just ends up in his pockets or the pockets of his supporters, so there really is no point to any of it.