British premier says Zim crisis needs peacekeeping force

By Tichaona Sibanda
3 July 2008

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested on Thursday that the international community could send a peacekeeping force to stabilise Zimbabwe.

Brown told a parliamentary committee in London that plans are already on the table to explore ways of deploying an international peacekeeping force, following an escalation of violence against MDC supporters since the 29th March elections.

‘I think we have got to bear in mind that all the pressure at the moment is political pressure to try and achieve a desired result. But we’ve got to listen also to what the opposition in Zimbabwe are saying to us about what they think is the right course that they wish to see pursued and we’ve got to get the mediators working very quickly to achieve the transition we want to see,’ Brown said.
Gangs of militants, wearing the bandanas and scarves of Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and carrying sticks and clubs, have been manning makeshift roadblocks in most parts of the country. Party militias and war veterans have set up torture camps in rural areas, towns and cities, frog-marching people to political meetings to re-educate them about the dangers of voting for the MDC.
The violence which broke out shortly after the March election, when Tsvangirai is believed to have defeated Mugabe outright has escalated dramatically ever since. Over 100 MDC activists have been murdered, 10,000 injured and over 200 000 displaced by Zanu-PF’s undeclared war on the MDC.
The US and the UK are pushing for a UN resolution to send a peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe. To establish a new peacekeeping mission nine of the Security Council’s 15 Member States must vote in favour.

However, if any one of the five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom or the United States—votes against the proposal, it fails. In the last few days, there have been diplomatic maneuvers by both the US and UK to lobby countries in the Security Council to support the resolution. It’s felt that China, who normally blocks resolutions on Zimbabwe, will not this time, because of the olympics. But South Africa have been the main problem, and have consistently blocked any UN action.