Robert Mugabe told his Zanu-PF party on Friday that his country was facing a war with Britain but he would never surrender, and ”Zimbabwe is mine”.
The Zimbabwe president’s defiant comments came amid escalating pressure from London on Zimbabwe’s neighbours to press Mugabe from office. Gordon Brown urged Southern African leaders on Friday to distance themselves from Mugabe and described the situation in Zimbabwe as a tragedy.
”I will never, never, never, never surrender. Zimbabwe is mine,” Mugabe told the party’s annual conference. ”I won’t be intimidated. Even if I am threatened with beheading, I believe this and nothing will ever move me from it: Zimbabwe belongs to us, not the British.”
Brown called on African leaders to ”make sure that it is absolutely clear to the people of Zimbabwe that we support those who are the democratically elected politicians”.
Hours earlier the state-run Herald newspaper reported Mugabe taunting other African leaders, saying they were under American pressure to force him from power but they lacked the courage to do it. ”How could African leaders ever topple Robert Mugabe, organise an army to come? It is not easy,” he told Zanu-PF’s central committee. ”I do not know of any African country that is brave enough to do that.”
Mugabe also sought to portray himself as seeking a political settlement, saying he had written to the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, inviting him to become prime minister in a power-sharing government.
But Tsvangirai threatened to quit power-sharing negotiations on Friday unless the authorities produce dozens of opposition activists who have been abducted and disappeared in recent weeks in what appears to be a renewed campaign of intimidation by Mugabe. Tsvangirai also called for fresh elections if a coalition government was not put in place soon.
The missing include Jestina Mukoko, one of Zimbabwe’s most prominent human rights activists, who was snatched from her home at night two weeks ago, as well as officials and activists from MDC. Tsvangirai accuses Zanu-PF and the security forces of illegal abductions.
”In the past two months more than 42 members of the MDC and civil society have been abducted and their whereabouts are still unknown,” said Tsvangirai. ”The regime is conducting a … targeted national terror campaign to undermine the MDC’s support within Zimbabwe and the work of pro-democracy and human rights organisations.
He said that the situation could no longer continue.
”The MDC can no longer sit at the same negotiating table with a party that is abducting our members, and other innocent civilians, and refusing to produce any of them before a court of law. Therefore, if these abductions do not cease immediately, and if all the abductees are not released or charged in a court of law by January 1 2009, I will be asking the MDC’s national council to pass a resolution to suspend all negotiations and contact with Zanu-PF.”
‘Appalling conditions’
Mukoko’s disappearance has caused particular disquiet in Zimbabwe. The 51-year-old head of the Zimbabwe Peace Project was taken at 5am by men in plain clothes who would not give her time to dress. Two children were left in the house.
Mukoko built a reputation for being thorough in her reports detailing the actions and impact of Mugabe’s regime, from its use of violence to terrorise voters to the impact of spreading starvation. The high court has ordered the police to find Mukoko but no action has been taken.
Tsvangirai, who is in semi-exile in Botswana after the Zimbabwean government refused him a travel document, remains gloomy about the prospects of implementing a power-sharing agreement with Mugabe agreed three months ago. It stalled after the president insisted that Zanu-PF control all the most important Cabinet posts, including security and finance. ”We are saddened by the fact that he is still trying to stay in power at all costs and reduce MDC to a junior partner in the new government … the Mugabe regime has wilfully and repeatedly broken the letter and the spirit of this agreement,” said Tsvangirai.
”The people of Zimbabwe cannot be expected to continue living under such appalling conditions indefinitely. Therefore, this negotiation process must now be confined to a specific timeframe in which all the outstanding issues are addressed … if this cannot be achieved then an internationally supervised presidential election must be conducted in an environment that is conducive to a free and fair poll.”
Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of killing Zimbabweans through neglect and incompetence in order to hang on to power.
”The situation in Zimbabwe, particularly from the humanitarian perspective, is now worse than at any time in our country’s history,” he said. ”Cholera is now rife throughout the country, starvation stalks almost every Zimbabwean family and education and healthcare now exist only for the elite.”
The UN said on Friday that the death toll from the cholera outbreak had risen to 1 123 out of nearly 21 000 reported cases. Some doctors say the real toll is probably much higher. The UN says it expects to have to feed about five million people, nearly half the population, because of the collapse of agriculture in Zimbabwe.
The economic implosion continued as the central bank issued a Z$10-billion note worth about £13.
The government has not released inflation figures since July when it was officially put at 231-million percent. Economists say inflation at the end of last month was running at about 40-sextillion percent. — guardian.co.uk