Zimbabwe’s neighbours must increase the pressure on Robert Mugabe’s regime after its violent crackdown on opposition politicians, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Thursday.
He described Mugabe’s rule as an ”abomination”, saying that the president and his government ”have taken an enormously potentially successful country and destroyed it”.
Asked about South Africa’s policy of not confronting the Harare government, Peters said the regime had only lasted this long because of ”certain outside support”.
He said New Zealand would try to influence those African countries in the Commonwealth to condemn the Mugabe government, which has been in power since 1980.
”We have to put pressure on those to up the ante, because frankly this has turned into an absolute disaster over the years and Mugabe should have gone a long, long time ago,” Peters told Radio New Zealand.
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was in hospital on Thursday with a suspected fractured skull after he and other members of his Movement for Democratic Change party were arrested and beaten on Sunday.
Opposition to 83-year-old Mugabe has steadily mounted amid an economic collapse. Inflation is running at 1 730% and there are widespread food shortages.
Evacuation
Meanwhile, Australia said on Thursday it was drawing up plans for a possible evacuation of its citizens from Zimbabwe.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the government was concerned for the safety of about 700 Australians living in Zimbabwe, where the situation was ”going from awful to catastrophic”.
”We’re reviewing our contingency plans in relation to any evacuations of Australians,” he told national radio. ”We are very focused on this crisis from that perspective.”
Downer urged neighbouring countries, particularly South Africa, to do more to halt the violence and intimidation by Mugabe’s regime.
”They are the countries that can have influence on Zimbabwe and we will continue to lobby them to be more decisive in the action they’re taking to persuade the Zimbabweans to deal with their problems,” he said.
South Africa’s policy of quiet diplomacy had not succeeded, he said.
”The situation in Zimbabwe is going from awful to catastrophic and I have to say there really has to be a much bigger effort from neighbouring countries.”
He called for a United Nations resolution against Zimbabwe’s government and for more countries to impose targeted sanctions against the leaders of the African nation.
Downer ruled out economic sanctions, saying they would ”just condemn people to death”.
‘Heavy price’
Mugabe’s government on Wednesday warned that the opposition would pay ”a heavy price” for what it called a campaign of violence to oust it from power.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mugabe’s government was unapologetic, and suggested that Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues had been assaulted for resisting arrest and for launching a violent drive to overthrow his Zanu-PF party.
”Those who incite violence, or actually cause and participate in unleashing it, are set to pay a very heavy price, regardless of who they are,” Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said in the statement.
”The Tsvangirai faction of the MDC has a long record of unleashing violence to achieve political goals. It has publicly restated its wish to use violence to overthrow government and as a means to power,” Ndlovu said.
”This will come to grief,” he added.
Ndlovu also said that Western governments, including the United States and Britain, are trying to topple Mugabe by funding the MDC.
He said there was clear evidence Harare’s long-time foes were working with the MDC.
”The government has noticed with utter dismay the unconditional statement of support to the violent MDC by a number of Western governments, including those of Britain, America and New Zealand,” Ndlovu said in a statement. – Sapa-AFP