Calls grow for Mugabe’s removal

By Alex Bell
05 December 2008

Calls for Robert Mugabe to be removed from his brutal position of power are beginning to grow, shortly after Kenya’s Prime Minister on Thursday said it was time for African governments to unite to oust the dictator.

After a meeting with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister Odinga on Thursday said that power-sharing in Zimbabwe is ‘dead’ and “will not work with a dictator who does not really believe in power-sharing.” Odinga told the BBC that if Mugabe were totally isolated, he would have no choice but to quit as President.

“Therefore it’s time for African governments to take decisive action to push him out of power,” said Odinga.

On Thursday South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that Mugabe must step down or be removed by force, saying that Mugabe has destroyed Zimbabwe, turning what used to be Africa’s bread basket into a ‘basket case’.

“I think now that the world must say: ‘You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down’,” the Nobel laureate told Dutch current affairs TV programme Nova.

Tutu, who was one of the leading voices against the former apartheid regime in South Africa, said the African Union (AU) or the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would have the capacity to remove
Mugabe.

And the calls continued to grow on Friday, with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Cape Town’s Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, also speaking out against the octogenarian leader. Rice said it was “well past time” that Mugabe stepped down, and called on other South African nations to take the lead in pressuring him to quit.

“The fact is there was a sham election, there has been a sham process of power-sharing talks and now we are seeing not only political and economic total devastation, but a humanitarian toll,” she said.

Meanwhile Archbishop Makgoba on Friday said the AU must declare Mugabe’s iron-fisted rule over Zimbabwe illegitimate, saying Mugabe ‘is no longer fit to rule’.

“I appeal to the chair of the African Union, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, to step in and declare publicly that Mugabe’s rule is now illegitimate and that he must step aside, and for the AU to work speedily with the United Nations to set up a transitional government to take control,” the Archbishop said in a statement.

Meanwhile EU foreign ministers are set to beef up targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe’s ruling elite amid worries over the deteriorating humanitarian situation and political stalemate in the country. According to a draft statement prepared for EU ministers to adopt in Brussels on Monday, the EU will stress its ‘deep concern’ over the critical humanitarian situation and call for “a fair and viable power sharing agreement without delay.”

The ministers are set to add at least 10 more names to the EU’s sanctions list of 168 members of the Zimbabwe regime, including Mugabe and his wife Grace, who are banned from entering EU nations and whose European assets have been frozen. The names to be added to the list will be “persons actively engaged in violence or human rights infringements”.