British Government Expects African Union Summit to Insist on Changes in Zimbabwe

The British Government has said that it expects African leaders meeting with Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe “will make it absolutely clear that there has got to be changes” in the African country.

The UK Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown, who is attending the African Union (AU) gathering in Egypt said: “If law and order breaks down in the country or if Mugabe is utterly resistant to change and continues to oppress violently people’s human rights, then I hope the African neighbors will do whatever it takes to secure his departure.

“What you cannot accept is the status quo continuing - President Mugabe has to go,” he said.

British Prime Minister, Gordom Brown, in reacting to the latest events in the Southern African country told journalists Monday in London that the message that is coming from the whole world is that the so-called elections will not be recognized.

“People want the violence and intimidation to end. As the African Union met Mr Mugabe in Egypt this morning, a new government has got to be brought in”, he said, emphasizing that when that happened, the United Kingdom would be ready to help the country to rebuild.

Mugabe is at the African Union summit, which opened in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on Monday, with African leaders expected to use the two-day meeting to discuss the political crisis in Zimbabwe.

The 84-year-old was declared the landslide winner of an internationally condemned poll, marred by violent intimidation, with him as the sole candidate.

He was sworn in for a sixth term Sunday night. But some African leaders have been unwilling to criticise Mugabe and have called for the president and opposition to engage in dialogue.

The UK leadership reacted few hours after Mugabe’s self-acclaimed victory that: “What we are now looking for is that combination of African countries in the African Union, working with the United Nations, sending envoys to Zimbabwe to see what progress can be made, to see what the way forward is.

“We and a group of countries are working together and prepared to contribute financially to the reconstruction of Zimbabwe. Countries around the world will do so as long as it is restored as a democracy.”

African election observers in Zimbabwe called for a re-run, saying the election was not free and fair and supporters of Mugabe were beating people who could not prove they voted.

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out last week in protest at a “brutal government-organized campaign” against his supporters.

But a defiant Mugabe went ahead with the elections and swearing-in ceremony.

However, officials in Harare said that he was prepared to hold talks with the MDC.

Source African Press Agency

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