HARARE, Jan 16: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe faced growing pressure from the United States on Wednesday to bring the country back to law and order or risk selective sanctions.
Washington will “ratchet up” the pressure on Mugabe to ensure that presidential elections set for March 9-10 are free and fair, a key US lawmaker said during a visit to South Africa, Zimbabwe’s most influential neighbour.
Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House’s Africa Committee, also confirmed a report that Washington was taking steps to locate millions of dollars thought to have been deposited abroad by Mugabe and his circle.
“You certainly can expect the US to continue to ratchet up the pressure for free and fair elections between now and March 9,” Royce told reporters in South Africa.
He accused Mugabe’s inner circle of top officials, as well as army officers stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, of stashing money abroad and going on shopping trips to Europe and the United States.
“We have a serious concern with the fact that, while people are struggling in Zimbabwe, we see this type of free spending and transfer of assets out of Zimbabwe and to accounts in the United States,” Royce said.
US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told reporters on Tuesday: “The policies that the Mugabe government have taken have led the country to economic and political rack and ruin, and it’s time for them to think about the future of their country, the future of their people, and focus on democracy”.
SELECTIVE SANCTIONS: Under a law signed by President George W. Bush last month, Reeker said the United States would oppose debt relief and vote against loan credit or guarantees to the government of Zimbabwe if it did not change its ways.
No final decisions have been taken on the timing or implementation of sanctions, which could include a travel ban on Zimbabwean leaders and their families.
US embassy officials in Harare said Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Lorne Craner, who is in Zimbabwe to make clear the US position, was meeting senior government officials and civic leaders on Wednesday. No details were immediately available.
The European Union is also considering sanctions if Zimbabwe does not quickly spell out how it will implement a commitment to accept foreign observers and independent media coverage of the March elections.
The 54-member Commonwealth is to discuss possibly suspending Zimbabwe from the grouping of former British colonies when in meets in Australia in early March.
MEDIA BILL LOOMS: Zimbabwe’s opposition said Mugabe’s government was likely to steamroller through parliament a controversial media bill which local journalists and Western governments say will destroy press freedoms in the country.
Parliament dropped the proposed bill from its business on Tuesday after a committee found serious problems with some clauses, but the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it expected the bill to be resubmitted.
“Under normal circumstances it would be unlikely for the bill to be debated today because the parliamentary legal committee has not met, and there is no report yet on the bill,” MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda said.
“But we’ve been forced before to consider bills without a report from the committee, so I cannot rule that out today,” Sibanda said.
The Access to Information and Privacy Bill bans foreign journalists from the country. Journalists accused of sowing “alarm and despondency” could be jailed for two years.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said on Wednesday Britain had permitted operations from London of a radio station run by Zimbabweans which he said indicated its bias in the political crisis in its former colony.
“The fact that, by its own admission, the British government is financing and allowing the broadcast of anti-Zimbabwe propaganda proves beyond doubt that Tony Blair and his government can never be objective on the situation in Zimbabwe,” Moyo said in a statement.
The silence of the European Union on the matter “clearly threatens the credibility of the EU as an honest broker”, Moyo added.
Mugabe told a summit of African leaders in Malawi this week that he agreed to ensure presidential elections were free and fair and to allow overseas observers and foreign journalists to cover the poll.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said Secretary-General Kofi Annan was “acutely concerned” by Zimbabwe’s laws restricting press freedom and political campaigning and stressed that freedom of assembly, a free press and a strong and independent judiciary were “essential building blocks of democracy,”.—Reuters