Zimbabwe’s problems should be solved by the people of that country, the South African Foreign Affairs Department said on Tuesday.
”We have constantly maintained that the solutions to the problems of Zimbabwe will be resolved by the people of Zimbabwe,” spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said.
Mamoepa was speaking two days after it was reported that police had arrested and assaulted Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who was among a number of people who tried to hold a protest prayer meeting in Harare on Sunday. One protester was shot dead by police and scores of others were arrested.
Mamoepa said the department had noted the current development and was monitoring the situation very closely.
”Whatever matters of mutual concern exist, the government will raise this through existing bilateral mutual mechanisms that exist between South Africa and Zimbabwe,” he said.
The South African government has been criticised for its ”quiet diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe under the repressive rule of President Robert Mugabe.
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) condemned in the ”strongest possible terms” the violence in Zimbabwe and South Africa’s response to it. Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said Mamoepa’s response was ”shamefully weak”.
”Such a response is disgraceful in the face of such massive attacks on democracy and human rights, especially coming from those who owed so much to international solidarity when South Africans were fighting for democracy and human rights against the apartheid regime,” Craven said.
He said the murder of Gift Tandare, the youth chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly, and the arrest and alleged beating and torture of Tsvangirai and other leaders of the opposition are clear proof that the government in Zimbabwe will stop at nothing to crush the resistance of the people.
”We call upon the governments of South Africa and the rest of the continent to condemn the Zimbabwe government, demand the immediate release of those arrested and the restoration of human rights,” he said.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said its offices were raided on Tuesday by the police and the Central Intelligence Organisation. Offices were searched and flyers, files and some video tapes seized.
Galileo Chirebvu, the ZCTU’s financial administrator, was asked to accompany the police. ”They had a search warrant with them and they said they were looking for subversive material,” said ZCTU spokesperson Khumbulani Ndlovu.
Cosatu is mobilising its members in support of the general strike called by the ZCTU for April 3 and 4, and has called on all South Africans to join it and show their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe.
‘A clear message must be sent’
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Tuesday urged the government to join the United Nations and European Union in strongly condemning the arrest of and assault on Tsvangirai.
Giving notice of a motion in the National Assembly, DA chief whip Douglas Gibson called on the House to join the UN and EU in condemning the human rights violations, the police brutality and the arrest of Tsvangirai at the instance of the Zimbabwe government.
If the House failed to do so, it would mean that South Africa ”is complicit before, during and after the shocking situation in Zimbabwe”, he said.
In a statement earlier, Gibson said Tsvangirai’s detention spoke of the Mugabe regime’s complete and utter disregard of democracy and the most basic human rights.
The South African government should call for the immediate release of Tsvangirai and not continue, through its silence on the matter, to approve Zimbabwe’s undemocratic actions quietly.
”A clear message must be sent to Mugabe that he will be held accountable for his actions against the opposition leader and his supporters,” Gibson said. — Sapa