Zimbabwean activists fear Mugabe firmly in power
Source: Reuters
By Michael Georgy JOHANNESBURG, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Zimbabwean activists accused President Robert Mugabe on Thursday of exploiting what they called Western powers' double standards on human rights and a weak opposition to brutally crush dissent. Their charges came as Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party looked set to endorse a controversial proposal this weekend to extend his presidency by two years to 2010, a move critics say will deepen the country's economic crisis. After releasing a report on abuses and a video showing police clubbing opposition figures, activists said U.S. President George W. Bush and his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair had no genuine interest in Zimbabwe. "There are huge double standards when we look at Bush and Blair's positions both globally and in terms of Zimbabwe," said Brian Raftopoulous of the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation at a Johannesburg news briefing. "President Mugabe has exploited that enormously in gaining support within the Third World, in gaining support within Africa," he said. What the opposition forces in Zimbabwe now needed to focus on was "reorganisation of their own capacity and to understand the contradiction of the Bush-Blair axis", Raftopoulous said. The combative Mugabe, 82, has ruled the southern African nation since independence from Britain in 1980. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), charges Mugabe and ZANU-PF have rigged three elections since 2000 to remain in power -- accusations firmly rejected by the government. In that time Zimbabwe has descended into a deep economic crisis, and critics blame Mugabe's policies for food, fuel and foreign currency shortages, massive unemployment and the world's highest inflation rate of over 1,000 percent. Mugabe blames the problems on sanctions by Western powers. The report accuses Mugabe's police of arresting activists without charge and torturing them. Pius Ncube, the outspoken archbishop of the southern Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo, said the opposition lacked a leader and accused Tsvangirai of dividing his MDC. "We know that people are ready to be self-sacrificing if there is a good leader," he said. "Mass protest is still possible if people are given confidence. ... The government wants to demoralise the people, to walk over their heads so that Mugabe can just do anything and everyone should be quiet." Ncube doubted African leaders could bring about change in Zimbabwe, accusing them of widespread corruption. "If you live in a glass house it is very hard for you to throw stones at others because they will throw stones ... and smash your own glass house," he said.
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