African nations need to put strong pressure on Zimbabwe’s government to end its authoritarian rule, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday as the main opposition leader returned to court to face the first of two treason cases.
Opposition officials say President Robert Mugabe’s government has targeted Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai as part of a desperate bid to cling to power despite political and economic chaos roiling the nation.
An estimated 70% of Zimbabweans are unemployed, inflation has soared to 269%, hunger is rife and recent opposition protest efforts were thwarted only when police and soldiers fired tear gas and live bullets at assembling demonstrators.
Writing in Tuesday’s New York Times, Powell called the government ”a ruthless regime,” accused Mugabe of ”violent misrule” and predicted he and his cronies would eventually lose their fight for power, ”dragging their soiled record behind them into obscurity”. However, Zimbabwe’s neighbours in Africa have to step up pressure on Mugabe to ensure a swift end to his dictatorship and save their region from further instability, he said.
”If leaders on the continent do not do more to convince President Robert Mugabe to respect the rule of law and enter into a dialogue with the political opposition, he and his cronies will drag Zimbabwe down until there is nothing left to ruin,” he wrote.
Powell also bemoaned the treatment of Tsvangirai, comparing him to Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate imprisoned by her government.
For now, Tsvangirai is a free man, having been released on bail on Friday in the second of two separate treason cases he is fighting.
Treason is punishable by death in Zimbabwe.
Those charges accuse Tsvangirai, jailed for two weeks after calling for anti-government strikes and protests earlier this month, of advocating Mugabe’s violent overthrow.
In the earlier charges, which he faced in his ongoing trial on Tuesday, prosecutors say he and two other opposition leaders planned to assassinate Mugabe and sought the help of air force head Perence Shiri in a planned coup.
The three deny the charges, saying they were framed by the government to weaken the opposition.
Shiri told the Harare High Court on Tuesday he was approached by opposition officials in January last year and offered Z$10-million (US$182 000 at the former official exchange rate) only to ”pacify” the military.
Defence attorney Eric Matinenga said Shiri held two meetings with the officials, including the opposition’s shadow defence minister, Giles Mutsekwa, a former army officer. He said the meetings did not deal with a possible coup and were called ahead of last year’s presidential election to clarify a televised statement made by police and military chiefs that they would not work with Tsvangirai if he were elected.
Shiri said armed forces chief General Vitalis Zvinavashe wrote that statement, which said the military would not follow a leader who had not fought in the bush war that led to independence in 1980 and swept Mugabe to power.
”For us to maintain discipline, I cannot question what my superior said. He is a four-star general, I am a three-star general,” Shiri said.
The discussion at Shiri’s Harare home with opposition officials ”was not mainly about the elections. It was whether I would cooperate with the [opposition] once it assumed power,” he said.
Shiri, a senior ruling party official, said he knew the Constitution required the military to remain non-partisan.
Tsvangirai was arrested and charged two weeks before the March 2001 election, which Mugabe narrowly won.
Independent observers said the election was swayed by state-orchestrated political violence and vote rigging.
Charges in the trial are based on a secretly recorded video tape made in the offices of Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe. He claims Tsvangirai asked for help in an assassination plot and coup.
Prosecutors say Tsvangirai again tried to topple Mugabe through this month’s protest action.
The opposition blames Mugabe for crippling the economy and creating acute shortages of fuel, food, medicine and essential imports. Mass famine was avoided this year only by foreign humanitarian aid. – Sapa-AP