The United States said on Wednesday it is looking at what additional sanctions it might impose on Zimbabwe after a government crackdown that led to the detention and beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
”We will have to take a look at what is currently on the table and what other steps might be taken. There’s always other tools in the tool box,” State Department spokesperson Tom Casey told reporters.
Rights groups say 50 opposition figures, including Tsvangirai, were tortured after their arrest during a prayer meeting on Sunday organised by a coalition of opposition, church and civic groups to discuss Zimbabwe’s woes.
Tsvangirai is in intensive care after suffering a suspected skull fracture in police custody.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday harshly criticised the rule of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the country since it gained independence from Britain in 1980.
Washington is not likely to impose broad sanctions that would hit the country’s already blighted economy, said a US official who asked not to be named because the review is in its early stages. Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is about 80% and there are shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange.
”What we want to do is look at a way to do this and find ways to hit the regime without causing additional hardship for the people there,” the official added. ”I think that means that you’re looking more at ways to expand and broaden the kinds of targeted sanctions that we’ve already got in place.”
The official said the US was consulting with its European Union partners on ways to tighten sanctions.
In 2002 and 2003, the US imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe, placing financial and visa restrictions on some individuals, banning transfers of military supplies and suspending non-humanitarian aid to the government.
In 2005, Washington expanded these sanctions to include the family members of those originally targeted.
The State Department rejected a warning from Mugabe’s government that the opposition would pay ”a heavy price” for what it has called a campaign of violence to oust it from power.
”Those kinds of comments are just in keeping with the continued effort at intimidation and repression of the opposition that have unfortunately characterised President Mugabe’s increasingly autocratic leadership,” Casey said.
Casey also warned the Mugabe government against interfering with a funeral on Saturday for someone who died as a result of the police breaking up Sunday’s rally.
The State Department urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to take up the issue and said Assistant Secretary of State Barry Lowenkron, the top US official on human rights, would seek to increase international pressure on Zimbabwe in talks with the African Union in Addis Ababa on Thursday.
‘This will come to grief’
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, Reuters