Finally, a sensible initiative to enhance the value of ZIM in Zimbabwe ...
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U.S. seeks to encourage resistance to Mugabe in Zimbabwe
James Dao The New York Times
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
WASHINGTON The Bush administration has disclosed that it is working to foster opposition to President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, calling his regime illegitimate and irrational.
Using some of the administration's strongest language yet to condemn the Zimbabwe government, senior State Department officials said Tuesday that Mugabe had won reelection in March through fraud and coercion and had since helped spread starvation in southern Africa through misguided policies.
Though they stopped short of calling for a change of government, the officials said that the United States was working with human rights activists, labor unions and pro-democracy groups in Zimbabwe, as well as other south African governments, to isolate the Mugabe government and encourage democratic opposition.
"The political status quo is unacceptable, because the elections were fraudulent," Walter Kansteiner, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters Tuesday.
"So we're working with others, other countries in the region as well as throughout the world, on how we can in fact, together, encourage the body politic of Zimbabwe to in fact go forward and correct that situation," Kansteiner said.
The administration's strong remarks came as the Mugabe government began evicting hundreds of white farmers from their property as part of a land redistribution plan. Since the government started enforcing the new law last week, about 200 farmers have been arrested for refusing to comply.
Southern Africa is experiencing its worst drought and food shortages in a decade. A senior state department official said it was irrational for Mugabe to evict white farmers when Zimbabwe needed their skills more than ever.
"It is madness to arrest commercial farmers in the middle of a drought when they could grow food to save people from starvation," said Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Natsios asserted that the Mugabe government was not actually giving the property to landless blacks, but was using it to reward loyal military officers and political cronies, a policy he described as a "disgusting grab."
Natsios also announced Tuesday that the United States has pledged an additional 190,000 metric tons of food assistance to southern Africa, where more than 12 million people in six countries are expected to suffer food shortages by the end of the year.
The United States has already delivered or pledged to provide 310,000 metric tons of food, mainly corn, to the region.
Zimbabwe is expected to account for half of those hungry people.
Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland are also experiencing severe food shortages. The United Nations is attempting to collect $611 million in food and other aid to stave off famine in those countries.
Administration officials said Mugabe has worsened food shortages in his country by maintaining currency exchange policies and price support programs that have kept the price of imported food artificially high.
"The problem is, the most severely affected country is the country that is being the least cooperative," Natsios said.
The administration's criticism of Mugabe comes as Secretary of State Colin Powell is preparing to lead a delegation of U.S. officials to South Africa on Sept. 3 for an international conference on sustainable development.
Senior administration officials said that Powell was likely to discuss Zimbabwe in bilateral talks with European and African leaders during that trip. Mugabe is also expected to attend the conference, which will be held in Johannesburg.
Since the March elections, which were marred by violence and allegations of fraud, the Commonwealth has voted to suspend Zimbabwe, and several Western countries have imposed travel or financial sanctions on senior officials in Mugabe's government.
But African nations have been less willing to criticize, much less impose sanctions, on Zimbabwe. Administration officials said that they were encouraging some of Zimbabwe's neighbors to pressure Mugabe to avoid an authoritarian crackdown on his people and to speak out publicly against his policies.
"We don't expect these guys to impose travel sanctions or economic sanctions on Mugabe," one senior administration official said. "But most of Mugabe's neighbors are keenly aware of the problem he poses for the region."
The senior official said that the United States was also providing advice, training and, in some cases, financial support to labor unions, human rights groups, election monitors and journalists to encourage them to demand democratic rights and free elections.
"Zimbabwe once was to many people a model of democracy and economic success," the official said. "Mugabe has systematically attacked most democratic institutions. But there's enough of a system still in place for the Zimbabwe people to deal with this."
Some independent analysts say they are not so sure, asserting that opposition groups have been weakened since the elections while Mugabe remains popular with the military and the landless poor.
"Mugabe runs on an anti-colonial platform," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a policy group. "So U.S. criticism may actually help him, not hurt him." |
