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Zimbabwe: Mbeki to Face G-8 Push for Sanctions
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
7 July 2008
Posted to the web 7 July 2008
Johannesburg
LEADERS of the top industrialised nations are expected to ratchet up pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe - and President Thabo Mbeki, mediator in that country's protracted political crisis - at a three-day Group of Eight (G-8) meeting starting in Japan today.
Mbeki left for the Japanese resort village of Toyako yesterday after another failed mediation initiative in Zimbabwe. He is among the leaders of several developing countries attending the G-8 summit.
Mbeki flew hurriedly to Harare on Saturday for a face-to-face meeting between Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, widely considered to be the rightful winner of recent presidential elections.
But Tsvangirai did not arrive, citing the non-neutral venue and continued failure to recognise him as winner of the disputed March 29 presidential poll.
Western governments refuse to recognise Mugabe as head of state. The European Union has said Tsvangirai must lead any national unity administration.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G-8 leaders would discuss how to toughen sanctions on Zimbabwe, an idea opposed by SA in the United Nations Security Council.
"I hope that we will also get support from our African colleagues here," Merkel said, in a sign of the pressure likely to be put on Mbeki.
Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council, told reporters on Air Force One on the way to Japan that the G-8 would "strongly condemn what Mugabe has done" and "strongly question the legitimacy of his government".
The African Union (AU) called for a power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe after a summit in Egypt last week. Tsvangirai rejected the proposal, saying it would not help end violence or recognise the MDC's March 29 victory.
Pressure on SA continued to mount at home yesterday, too, with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband saying it was "imperative" to find a solution to the worsening crisis in Zimbabwe.
After meeting about 2000 refugees at a centre in Johannesburg, Miliband said Britain would redouble its efforts to ensure that Mugabe's regime was not seen as "a legitimate representation of the will of the people of Zimbabwe".
Miliband called for the international community to back US-proposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, to be tabled in coming days at the security council.
The British minister arrived in SA yesterday for talks with Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma under the auspices of the SA-UK Bilateral Forum.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad on Friday rejected the draft security council resolution calling for mandatory sanctions to be applied to Mugabe and the senior leadership of Zanu (PF).
Despite reports of continuing violence against MDC supporters, Pahad insisted that the recent AU summit came to that conclusion based on a concrete understanding of the realities on the ground.
"Any other interventions that go against the gist of what the AU summit resolution presents, I believe, will not be of assistance.
"As the AU summit resolution says, we call on all other organisations and the international community to not do anything that will jeopardise what the Southern African Development Community (SADC) facilitation, on behalf of the African continent, is trying to achieve," Pahad said.
Mbeki is the SADC's facilitator.
"We therefore hope that those who have proposed this draft will seriously consider what the summit decisions were and allow Africans to solve Africa's problems," Pahad said.
The AU resolution, while expressing grave concern , stopped short of refusing to recognise the results of Mugabe's June 27 one-candidate runoff election, but did not endorse Mugabe maintaining the status quo.
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With Reuters, Wyndham Hartley
Another Anglo progressive view below:
'Zimbabwe shows Africa is still in the despots' grip", said the headline in the London Observer over an article by Keith Richburg.
"Thank God that I am an American," writes this former foreign editor of the Washington Post.
An African-American, Richburg says he is very pleased he is not an African.
He reminds me of middle-class black Americans I met when I first travelled in Africa. They were usually tourists looking for their roots and in their behaviour, reactions and ignorance, they demonstrated how quintessentially American they were. For them, Africa was another planet.
A... [Read Full Text]
FANTASTIC article Phiri, thanks for sharing.
I too concur. Not to be unkind and not that it matters much, but I do feel that Phiri's article is not entirely his own. I have read many of Phiri's posts and the sentence formations and command of written English in this particular post is different. This is meant to be a constructive criticism and not a put down to Phiri.
pushing for sanction against zimbabwe or Mugabe?this question need to be table at the G8 summitt.The African leaders attending this submitt should define this sanction clearly to other participant and those pushing for sanctions.The masses in zimbabwe suffers this so call sanctions and not those who lives in the government palace,sanction should be consider inhuman ,hatred,racism and inhuman right.sanction of zimbabwe affects the ordinary citizen,it affects the less previledge,affects the disable,affects the poor .it does not pinch or have impact on the dictator and the imbecile that sorrounded the government.If this so called developed countries,super power and the United Nations... [Read Full Text]
Um......typsytypsy....there aren't any African countries in the G8. So no African participants.
Zimbabwe is a failed state it isn't even in the D8.
you are so funny...Yes there are some African countries invited.
I'm funny? Thanks, I think, glad you had a giggle.
Invited, attending, present.........participants? I think not.
Hopefully the G8 not having to suffer the same nonsense from China, and South Africa in the UN can acomplish something.
I notice Toothless Mbeki has hotfooted it to Japan to plead Robber McGarbages case to the G8, what a funny little man he is. I can hear it now, "Please don't apply sanctions to Bob he's a good boy really, he's just misunderstood".
I hope they lock him out.
If I were a religious man I'd probably be praying for unilateral sanctions from... [Read Full Text]
YEs, but only to beg the rest of world for last few crumbs on the table. All of the countries come to the G8 to define the world. African countries come to beg.
If the african states cannot even do something as simple as show a united front against dictators for whatever reason. The countries of the west should realize these people are incapable of good governance and we in the west should come to the conclusion african governments are failures and stop all aid and assistance until they can show they are up to the task. If not forget them and move on.
response to Mal comment about aid to Africa,the west should pocket those invisble aid that are not properly or honestly giving as showing in their sole sponsored media.do you beleive in those billions claimed giving to Africa as aid,if that be so ,if they doing it in honesty they should destribute those exagerrated aid with the poor.
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