removal

By Franz Wild Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) — Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe received support from his allies in Southern Africa as leaders called for the removal of international sanctions, saying the political climate in the country has improved. The 15-member Southern African Development Community noted progress made in implementing a power-sharing agreement between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and called on the international community “to remove all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe,” according to a statement issued late yesterday at the end of a two-day summit in Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. The presidents from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia, who handle political, defense and security issues for the SADC, will mediate when problems arise in implementing the Zimbabwe political accord that Mugabe and Tsvangirai signed a year ago, Congolese President Joseph Kabila told reporters at the end of the meeting. Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed a government in February that is trying to reverse a decade of economic collapse and rampant inflation. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, seized white-owned commercial farms and redistributed them to black farmers, a move that slashed export earnings, resulting in shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange. Accusations of human rights abuses and vote rigging have led the European Union and U.S. to impose sanctions, including a travel ban, on the Mugabe leadership. Mugabe blames the sanctions for Zimbabwe’s economic disaster and has asked Tsvangirai to call for their removal. Political Changes In the lead-up to the meeting, Tsvangirai said Mugabe was stalling on political changes, including the appointments of the attorney general. “The legitimacy, credibility and indeed the existence of the inclusive government itself depends upon the expeditious resolution and enforcement of the agreement in full,” Tsvangirai told reporters in Kinshasa yesterday. Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change , declined to repeat calls for SADC leaders to put pressure on 85-year-old Mugabe to implement political changes. Asked whether he was satisfied with the amount of pressure regional peers were putting on Mugabe, he replied “this has nothing to do with President Mugabe.” Tsvangirai last week denounced what he called “vicious propaganda” emanating from Zimbabwe’s state media, saying it threatened the work of the government. While peace and stability have begun to take root in the country, MDC lawmakers continue to be persecuted and prosecuted and moves to improve human rights are progressing at a “deliberately slow pace,” he said in a statement marking the first anniversary of the power-sharing accord. SADC Tribunal Tsvangirai denied Zimbabwe has pulled out of the SADC Tribunal that ruled in November in favor of a group of white commercial farmers who tried to block an attempt by the government to forcibly acquire their land. Zimbabwe’s state-owned Herald newspaper reported the withdrawal on Sept. 2, citing Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa , a senior official in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. “I don’t recall at any cabinet meeting, any decision to pull out of the SADC Tribunal, or to go against the decisions of the tribunal,” Tsvangirai said in Kinshasa. The Windhoek, Namibia-based Tribunal has no jurisdiction over Zimbabwe as the protocol establishing it hasn’t been ratified by two-thirds of SADC members and Zimbabwe wouldn’t recognize its rulings, Chinamasa said. SADC justice ministers will report on a resolution of this issue “as soon as possible” after not having had enough time during the summit, Kabila said. To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in Kinshasa at fwild@bloomberg.net