The Daily News (Harare)
21 July 2003
President George W Bush on Friday hit out at six regimes on a United States blacklist he said were guilty of oppression and human rights abuses in Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Belarus.
In a proclamation issued to mark "Captive Nations Week" first observed in 1959 as a statement against communism, Bush hit out at a familiar gallery of US foes.
"Millions of people still live under regimes that violate their citizens' rights daily," Bush said in a statement issued as he made a day-trip to Dallas from his Texas ranch.
"In countries such as Burma (renamed Myanmar by the ruling military junta in 1989) and Iran, citizens lack the right to choose their government, speak out against oppression, and practice their religion freely," Bush said.
"The despot who rules Cuba imprisons political opponents and crushes peaceful opposition," he said, in barbed remarks aimed at Fidel Castro.
There were also harsh words for North Korea, with which Washington has been locked in a nuclear weapons showdown since October.
"Hundreds of thousands languish in prison camps, and citizens suffer from malnutrition as the regime pursues weapons of mass destruction," Bush said.
"Violence, corruption, and mismanagement reign in Zimbabwe, and an authoritarian government in Belarus smothers political dissent."
But Bush lauded his ouster of the "brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq", during a US-led war earlier this year.
"The Iraqi people are no longer captives in their own country," Bush said.
"Their freedom is evidence of the fall of one of the most oppressive dictators in history," he said, claiming that Iraqis were now meeting "openly and freely" to discuss the future of their country.
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa last night flatly refused to speak to the Daily News when contacted for comment on Bush's inclusion of Zimbabwe among the world's rogue nations that abused human rights.
But Harare has in the past dismissed similar charges by Bush and the West as untrue and aimed at forcing the government to backtrack on its controversial seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
The government's chaotic land reforms that disrupted agricultural production have been blamed for causing severe food shortages in a country once self-sufficient in food production.
University of Zimbabwe (UZ) political scientist Eldred Masunungure said Bush's listing of Zimbabwe among rogue states such as Myanmar was a sign of "the US's anxiety for a solution over Zimbabwe's slide into absolute authoritarian rule".
Masunungure, who heads the UZ's political and administrative studies department, said Bush, who two weeks ago said he was behind South African President Thabo Mbeki's attempts to find a solution to Zimbabwe's political crisis, would for now continue relying on third parties like Mbeki to press for change in Zimbabwe.
But the respected analyst said the new listing of Zimbabwe was an indication of more direct pressure beginning to be applied by Washington on Zimbabwe's leaders to abandon undemocratic policies and uphold human rights and the rule of law.
Human rights activist and lawyer Brian Kagoro said while Bush's list confirmed Zimbabwe as an outcast and outlaw state, it was still up to Zimbabweans to rid themselves of "oppression".
He said: "The rest of the world can call us a pariah state, but what are we saying ourselves?
"Are we freer than we were under Ian Smith (white supremacist ruler of Zimbabwe before independence) in terms of our right to protest, to engage in progressive economic activity and even gathering as a people? We have to liberate ourselves from this repressive system."
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