U.S. ambassador criticizes Zimbabwe

Terry Leonard

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A wave of state-orchestrated violence continues unabated in Zimbabwe, despite President Robert Mugabe’s admission that his security forces were overreacting, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe said Monday.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dell said that presidents from southern African countries meeting privately last week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, told Mugabe his police had been excessive in beating and torturing government opponents.

The summit called last Thursday by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki to mediate a solution to Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis, Dell said in a telephone interview from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

However, Dell said he was “skeptical about the prospects of this initiative leading to anything like a positive outcome,” considering the past performance of Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” with Zimbabwe.

Citing sources at the meeting, Dell said the presidents had been hard on Mugabe, but the presidents’ failure to make their criticism public showed the limit of their ability to be constructive.

“None of this means anything if in public they are going to say nothing and thereby let him control the story,” Dell said. “So he came out of the meeting and claimed total victory and nobody dared to contradict him.”

Dell said that, based on information from his sources at the meeting, Mugabe acknowledged that his security forces had overreacted, especially in beating Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s most prominent opposition leader.

The U.S. ambassador also said that, “as far as we are aware, the wave of state-orchestrated violence — including abductions, beatings, torture and the unconfirmed but possible killings of MDC activists — continues unabated.”

Tsvangirai called on Mbeki to “act quickly and decisively to halt the suffering of millions of Zimbabweans.”

The opposition leader was in Johannesburg seeking medical care after he and other activists were attacked last month while in police custody. There were concerns that Tsvangirai, whose eye was bloodshot and his face bruised, suffered a fractured skull.

“Mugabe’s crackdown on our people leaves a trail of broken limbs, rape victims, torture victims and dead bodies,” Tsvangirai said.

Dell said Mugabe had managed last week to ram through his nomination as ruling ZANU-PF party candidate in next year’s elections, with little debate — proving “he had the ability to sort of manipulate the party at will.”

Given the result — that Mugabe will likely run in a March 2008 election — everyone, particularly the opposition, should start now focusing on the campaign.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Reform needs to step into the race, Dell said, noting Tsvangirai’s vow to boycott the election if no reforms were instituted to guarantee a free and fair vote.

Tsvangirai called for Mbeki to negotiate for next year’s elections to be held under free and fair conditions.

“Mugabe has a last opportunity to show goodwill by allowing the people of Zimbabwe to express their democratic rights,” he said. “All forces inside his party and outside are demanding he should exit from power. Hopefully this election will be a willing exit on his part.”

Tsvangirai said he hoped the South African leader, who was appointed by regional leaders last week to mediate, would approach Zimbabwe with a “new perspective.”

The main Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called for a two-day strike, accusing the government of corruption and mismanagement that fueled official inflation of nearly 1,700 percent — the highest rate in the world — as well as 80 percent unemployment and acute shortages of food, hard currency and gasoline. The strike began Tuesday.

In the interview with AP, Dell also denied the U.S. government had given any weapons to the opposition, and also denied claims by the Zimbabwean government that the U.S. was encouraging opposition activists to incite violence.

“Of course it is absurd. It is patent nonsense,” Dell said.

Dell said he himself continued to be threatened by the government for speaking out about conditions in Zimbabwe.

“They say they’ll consider it unwarranted interference, and they will throw me out,” he said.

(Associated Press)