POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: Groups Ask West, Commonwealth to Act Urgently

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 2002 (IPS) - International human rights groups are calling on Western nations and the Commonwealth to follow through with tough sanctions against the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe if it does not act immediately to ensure free and fair elections Mar. 9-10.

In a statement sent Tuesday to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), which is meeting in London Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Zimbabwe’s membership in the Commonwealth should be suspended at the next heads of government meeting unless the government in Harare immediately repeals new curbs on political activity and initiates disciplinary action against police who fail to act against political violence.

Amnesty International also called Tuesday for Zimbabwe to accept the immediate deployment of observers for the upcoming presidential elections and asked the CMAG and the European Union (EU), which also has made a series of demands on Zimbabwe, to insist in their exchanges with Harare that the government permit local election monitors to observe the polls.

“International and regional observers, even if they are allowed into Zimbabwe next week, would work best alongside local civil society observers who are experienced in detecting vote-rigging,” the Amnesty said. “International promotion and protection of human rights should be a partnership between Zimbabwean civil society and the international community.”

The two appeals come amid increasing concern here and in other Western capitals that Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, is intent on winning re-election by fair means or foul. Mugabe has vowed a clean vote.

The Commonwealth and EU have threatened to impose sanctions against the government if it does not create the conditions for a free and fair election but those threats appear so far to have had little effect. Repression of the opposition appears to have increased.

“There is too much bark and too little bite in dealing with Zimbabwe,” according to John Prendergast, Africa co-director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).

“If meaningful action is not taken now, the leadership in Harare will continue to believe that it can act with total impunity,” said Prendergast, who served as an Africa adviser to the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton.

If Mugabe declares victory in elections assessed as unfair by Zimbabweans and international observers, the ICG warned in a report last week, the result could be a “massive destabilisation that will invariably affect all of Southern Africa.”

The EU foreign ministers Monday set Feb. 3 as the deadline for Harare to grant full access to Zimbabwe or face targeted sanctions against 20 top Zimbabwean officials, including Mugabe and his family. Sanctions will likely include a travel ban, an assets freeze, and an arms embargo.

The United States will likely impose the same or very similar sanctions, according to State Department officials who say Washington, which sent a senior official to Harare to assess the situation earlier this month, has become increasingly exasperated by what it regards as Mugabe’s intransigence.

Both London and Washington have been working in recent weeks to identify assets held outside Zimbabwe by Mugabe and his most loyal supporters that could be frozen, according to U.S. officials.

Last September, the CMAG, which monitors Commonwealth members states’ democratic practices, brokered an agreement in Abuja with the Harare government on a series of measures designed to reduce tensions and political violence in the run-up to the elections. The agreement specified that the government would end the illegal seizure and occupation of farms and respect the rule of law, in return for which Britain and other “international partners” pledged to support the land reform process.

HRW charged the government has failed to follow through. “Thousands of Zimbabweans, almost all of them presumed supporters of the opposition, farmers and farm workers, have been the victims of political and land-related violence since the Abuja agreement,” it said Tuesday.

At its meeting Wednesday, the CMAG was to consider whether to formally review Zimbabwe’s compliance both with the accord and with the Commonwealth’s basic principles.

HRW said CMAG should give Harare a series of conditions to be fulfilled immediately if it is to avoid suspension at the next heads of government meeting scheduled to take place after the Zimbabwe elections.

These should include the withdrawal or repeal of legislation that violates constitutional rights or restricts non-violent political activity; the issuance of clear instructions to the police to arrest and prosecute all perpetrators of violence; and the disciplining of police and other law-enforcement officers who fail to comply.

“The immediate cessation of violence, accompanied by these minimum steps, would begin to re-establish an environment in which political debate can take place freely,” HRW said.

Amnesty stressed the importance of ensuring that all independent local groups that wish to do so should be permitted to monitor the elections. It noted that amendments to the election code passed into law last month create a risk that only members of Zimbabwean civil society with which the Mugabe government agrees will be allowed to observe the election.

The new laws also permit only chosen civil service employees to monitor the vote count. This is in contrast to the June 2000 parliamentary elections, in which domestic monitors played a key role in detecting vote-rigging attempts, according to Amnesty.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won more than one-third of the seats in that election, setting up the presidential election showdown between Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Last week, according to Amnesty, police arrested some 25 MDC supporters in Bulawayo after militants of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union -Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) blocked their rally. A second MDC rally was violently suppressed in a suburb of Harare by ZANU-PF activists reportedly aided by riot police, Amnesty said.