Mugabe refuses to budge
The increasingly isolated and forlorn Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has rejected domestic and international calls for an end to his 23-year authoritarian rule and pledged to continue his reign.
Mr. Mugabe is under pressure on all fronts. Last week, opposition parties challenged the 79-year-old leader to relinquish his grip on the country.
Anti-government groups insist Mr. Mugabe’s 2002 ZANU-PF party re-election victory was rigged.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, held at a police in Harare, was charged with treason following the protests. Mr. Mugabe faces a fresh political storm on that issue as well.
Gibson Sibanda, vice president of the Movement for Democratic Change, said Mr. Tsvangirai’s imprisonment would prompt further anti-government protests.
Should Mr. Tsvangirai’s liberty be further denied, Mr. Sibanda promised that ‘the dying regime must brace itself for a long winter of intense but peaceful mass action.’
But Mr. Mugabe insists opposition to rule was backed by US and UK money and resources.
In an interview with South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC, Mr. Mugabe said of Mr. Tsvangirai’s arrest: ‘We were expected to quake and shake with fear at this threat from this pathetic puppet who regards the British as his masters and God.
‘It is very stupid and naive to think that we would just stand by and watch.’
He added: ‘I don’t want to retire in a situation where people are disunited and where certain of our objectives have not been achieved.’
The US State Department has charged his government with ‘continued intimidation and repression.’
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher: ‘We strongly condemn this arrest. The heightened climate of confrontation and violence in Zimbabwe this week we think heightens the urgent need for dialogue between the government and opposition.’
US President George W. Bush said Zimbabwe’s political instability ‘endangers the southern African region.’
