Australia and New Zealand agreed on Saturday on a range of new measures to increase pressure on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to respect human rights, including referring him to the International Criminal Court.
The measures, which also propose a total international sporting ban on all Zimbabwean teams, were agreed at a meeting between Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and his New Zealand counterpart Phil Goff.
”The continued failure of the Zimbabwean government to respect democracy and human rights needs to be addressed firmly by the international community,” the ministers said in a joint statement.
They ”agreed on a range of measures aimed at increasing international pressure on the Mugabe regime to cease its abhorrent and egregious destruction of its people’s homes, livelihoods and basic human rights”.
The United Nations estimates that 200 000 people have lost their homes since police started ”Operation Murambatsvina” six weeks ago, demolishing shacks and unauthorised dwellings across the southern African country.
Downer and Goff also agreed to make joint representations to the International Cricket Council (ICC) urging it to alter the rules to allow teams to forfeit tours to countries where serious human rights abuses are occurring.
New Zealand’s cricket’s governing body said Friday a planned tour to Zimbabwe in August will go ahead, despite strong public and political opposition, to avoid being hit with a fine of at least two million US dollars as well as compensation for lost revenue.
The ministers said they would also:
- Explore with like-minded countries a total sporting ban on all Zimbabwe representative teams.
- Urge wealthy nations of the G8 grouping to address the Zimbabwe issue during their July 6-8 meeting in Scotland.
- Make urgent representations to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights and members of the Security Council to urge the UN to investigate past and present human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
- Support continued moves to expel Zimbabwe from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
- Make a joint Australia/New Zealand demarche to neighbouring states, including South Africa, urging them to place diplomatic pressure on Zimbabwe to conform with international human rights standards.
- Propose to the UN Security Council that the actions of the Mugabe regime be referred to the International Criminal Court.
The decisions were taken at a biannual meeting of the foreign ministers near Brisbane in Australia’s Queensland state. – Sapa-AFP