Pressure mounts against Mugabe as global disassociation grows

By Alex Bell
1 July 2008

The pressure on Robert Mugabe to end his violent regime is mounting following last week’s “sham” election, with a growing number of international leaders and businesses disassociating themselves from the octogenarian dictator.

On Friday, as the one-man poll got under way in Zimbabwe, Germany said it had asked a Munich-based firm to stop supplying Zimbabwe with paper used for banknotes there. A development ministry spokesperson told a news conference on Friday that there was “serious concerns” that the firm’s supplies are “providing additional support to the system in Zimbabwe, which from our point of view is not acceptable”. Zimbabwe’s financial collapse has seen Mugabe’s government responding to runaway inflation by printing more and more banknotes, of ever higher denominations.

Meanwhile, after Mugabe was sworn in for his sixth term as president following his “landslide victory” in the run off elections, Italian officials announced on Monday they had recalled their Zimbabwean ambassador, for consultations. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini ordered Ambassador Mario Bologna home, just days after he called for all European Union diplomats to be withdrawn from Zimbabwe in a protest against Mugabe’s regime.

The ministry said in a statement that a decision to pull out all EU ambassadors would reflect the policy of “complete firmness and disapproval that is shared by the international community”.

The Italian ministry praised the EU’s work in Zimbabwe but said withdrawing the bloc’s ambassadors would have “political significance” and urged other EU governments to follow Rome’s example.

At the same time, British supermarket giant, Tesco, which buys up to £1m worth of goods from Zimbabwe each year, announced that it would stop sourcing products while the political crisis persists there. The announcement came a week after the group said it would be “irresponsible” to cut support to small farmers under the current conditions.
Supermarkets have been criticised for selling produce from the country, where millions are starving under the Mugabe regime. Tesco was among a number of British retailers who sell vegetables ranging from sugar snap peas to fine beans, all sourced from Zimbabwe. The firm said it had taken the “difficult decision” to cut trade “until there is an end to the current political crisis”.
A spokesperson said: “We also attach a very high priority to ensuring that this decision does least harm to the workers and their dependants who have supplied us from Zimbabwe. We cannot continue to support them through trade, but are urgently finding ways to support them by other means”.
The retailer said it could not ignore the escalating crisis and the feeling among the international community that further action was needed to increase pressure for change.