Former United States president Bill Clinton arrived in South Africa on Monday on the third leg of a six-nation African tour, saying people needed to speak out against a demolition blitz in Zimbabwe which has left hundreds of thousands homeless.
”When President Robert Mugabe ploughs up neighbourhoods that coincidentally voted against him, he should be criticised,” Clinton told guests at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg.
The former president is in South Africa to celebrate Mandela’s 87th birthday.
”I understand non-interference and solidarity with someone who spoke out against the evils of apartheid. But you can only take that so far,” said Clinton of the Zimbabwean government’s clean up drive.
The United Nations estimates that about 200 000 citizens in the embattled Southern African country have been left homeless after the two-pronged operation which saw the government knock down hawkers’ stalls and demolish backyard shacks in townships over the last two months.
Zimbabwe’s opposition puts the figure at 1,5-million displaced people.
”If you want credibility you have to fight for basic freedoms. You can’t have credibility if no-one speaks out against ploughing up neighbourhoods,” Clinton told guests at the function. Mandela spent his birthday in Qunu in the Eastern Cape with his family.
”Democracy is more than just majority rule. It is also about minority rights and minority participation. I entertained Robert Mugabe at the White House and tried my best to impress this on him,” said Clinton.
”If you want to build a modern and credible continent you have to speak out against the sort of thing Mugabe is doing,” he added.
Clinton arrived in South Africa after earlier whistle-stops in Mozambique and Lesotho.
He will also travel to Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda to seek to ”reinvigorate political will” in those countries for scaling up HIV/Aids treatment programmes, a spokesperson has said.
The former president planned to evaluate progress made since 2003 by his foundation which has been concentrating on helping African governments design and implement HIV/Aids treatment programmes.
Report out ‘in the next day or two’
A United Nations envoy who investigated the clean up campaign will present a report of her findings to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in in the next couple of days, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe said on Monday.
”We are hoping to receive it in the next day or two,” she told reporters. ”Once we receive it, it will be given to the government of Zimbabwe for 48 hours and then we will make it public.”
UN envoy Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, who is the executive director of UN Habitat, is expected to brief reporters here on her exhaustive fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe.
”The Secretary General will receive her report in the coming days and will study its contents to determine the next steps for the United Nations,” Okabe said.
She made it clear that the advance copy that will be turned over to the Zimbabwean government would be in its final form. She added that the report would be made public on Friday or Monday.
Okabe reiterated that Annan was ”increasingly concerned by the human rights and humanitarian impact of the recent demolitions of what the government of Zimbabwe has called illegal settlements”.
Last week, the Zimbabwe government a temporary halt to its campaign to demolish backyard shacks and other illegal buildings and gave landlords 10 days starting on Monday ”to regularise” the structures with the relevant municipalities.
The campaign has been criticised by the United States and Britain but the African Union has refrained from blasting Harare, with South Africa in particular saying that it will await Tibaijuka’s report to decide on what action to take. – Sapa-AFP