Gaborone | Thursday
THE executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Prega Ramsamy, on Wednesday urged the Commonwealth to give Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe a chance and not to suspend his country.
“President Robert Mugabe has made pledges and has to be given a chance to fulfil them,” Ramsamy told a press conference in Botswana, two days after a SADC summit where Zimbabwe’s March elections and political violence were high on the agenda.
Zimbabwe’s government policies will be examined at a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) due to take place on January 30, after two years of political violence mainly targetting the opposition and white farmers.
The main Commonwealth summit is due to take place north of Brisbane in Australia between March 2 and 5, five days before the presidential poll when Mugabe faces his strongest challenge in 21 years of rule, from opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
“It would be unfortunate if the Commonwealth meeting was to pre-empt the outcome of the Zimbabwean elections by dismissing Zimbabwe from the organisation,” Ramsamy said. Such action “will only result in the hardening of attitudes.”
“We will try very hard to persuade Commonwealth not to sideline Zimbabwe as that will only cause complications. It will be premature to chase Zimbabwe before the elections as that will not achieve anything,” he added.
Mugabe had told SADC leaders of circumstances that led to the country’s generals announcing last week that they would not support anybody “who had not participated in the liberation struggle becoming president of Zimbabwe”.
“He (Mugabe) said it was done through a general context of supporting the philosophy of liberation and independence that people fought for,” Ramsamy said.
“The army was also responding to false reports that they had asked Mugabe to step down.”
Last week, Zimbabwe’s defence forces commander, General Vitalis Zvinavashe, declared that “the security organisations will only stand in support of those political leaders that will pursue Zimbabwean values” and the objectives of the “liberation struggle”.
Tsvangirai was not an active combatant in the 1970’s struggle.
The SADC summit issued a statement saying that it “welcomed the assurances by President Mugabe that the forthcoming presidential elections scheduled for March 9-10, 2002 will be free and fair.”
Leaders had said their main concern was the statement from the generals.
Meanwhile, the BBC on Wednesday rejected allegations from Zimbabwe that its reporting on the country is biased, and urged Mugabe’s government to reconsider a ban against its teams working there.
“The BBC is deeply disappointed that despite our repeated requests the goverment of Zimbabwe continues to ban our correspondents and reporting teams from operating there,” the Director of the BBC World Service Mark Byford wrote in a letter sent to the Zimbabwe Herald newspaper.
“It also regrets that the government continues to make misleading statements about the BBC, which, had we been consulted, we could have corrected,” the letter said.
Persistent statements made by Harare and published in the Herald allege that the BBC is working to the remit of the British government and has been broadcasting in the native Shona and Ndebele languages.
The BBC flatly denied such allegations in its letter.
“The BBC unequivocally refutes any suggestions that the BBC is anti-Zimbabwe, is motivated by political end or is working to the remit of any government,” wrote Byford.
“The BBC World Service does not broadcast in Shona and Ndebele and we have no plans to do so,” he added.
The Zimbabwe government has clamped down on press freedoms in the build-up to its presidential election, due on March 9-10. – AFP