Cyprian Musoke And Harriette Onyalla
22 November 2007
Kampala — THE Commonwealth cannot ignore the crisis in Zimbabwe, Stuart Mole, the director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, has said.
Addressing a public dialogue under the theme "Zimbabwe in crisis; time for Commonwealth action" at the Grand Imperial Hotel in Kampala on Tuesday, Mole appealed to the heads of government to address the plight of millions of Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai , said the rate of inflation in his country had soared to over 10,000%.
At least 85% of the people are unemployed and nearly four million people, half of the population, depends of food aid, Tsvangirai , the president of the Movement for Democratic Change, noted.
According to him, four million Zimbabweans have fled the country.
"It is a situation the Commonwealth cannot ignore. We hope that in future, the country will return to the Commonwealth because the bloc played a big role in the birth of a free Zimbabwe in Lancaster," he said.
When South Africa left the Commonwealth in 1961, he recalled, the organisation only redoubled its support for the people of South Africa.
"Let us re-engage Zimbabwe in dialogue, prepare for free and fair elections so that the people can speak. Let us keep up the pressure," Tsvangirai said.
"The life expectancy is now the lowest and inflation is the highest in the world. All forms of businesses, rural and urban are on the verge of collapse. The formal economy has disappeared."
He said one million children had dropped out of school whereas hospitals lack essential drugs, staff and equipment.
Maja Daruwala, the director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said an open approach to the crisis would be efficient.
"The Commonwealth must be engaged at the level of open dialogue and diplomacy," she said.
The chairperson of the Legal Resources Foundation in Zimbabwe, Nokuthula Moyo, said shops and markets in her country were empty.
She said industries had been closed due to arbitrary slashing of taxes by the state and people were depending on cross-border black market products.
There is massive arrest of opposition politicians in Zimbabwe, she added.
"Nobody earns enough money to travel to and from work a month. Several people have lived in darkness for months due to power shortage," Moyo said.
Kumi Naidoo of a South African NGO, CIVICUS, appealed to President Robert Mugabe to create space for international humanitarian organisations to save his people.
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