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'Mugabe must step down with dignity'
The Times (SA)
April 02, 2008

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=739329

Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu expressed hope today that Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe would be able to step down with dignity.

He was speaking as election results showed that Mugabe's Zanu-PF had lost control of the country's Parliament, and as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claimed it had also won the presidency.

"That is democracy. Democracy is, you change government when people decide," Tutu said in Cape Town, speaking to journalists after a memorial service for anti-apartheid activist Ivan Toms. "I mean when your time is over, your time is over."

"We hope the transition will be a peaceful one, relatively peaceful, and that Mr Mugabe will step down with dignity, gracefully."

Tutu said Mugabe, who played a pivotal role in the armed struggle that toppled the Rhodesian regime, was "someone we were very proud of".

"He did a fantastic job, and it's such a great shame, because he had a wonderful legacy. If he had stepped down ten or so years ago he would be held in very, very high regard.

"And I still want to say we must honour him for the things that he did do, and just say what a shame.

"We hope he will be able to step down gracefully, with dignity."

Echoing a theme he had preached at Toms' funeral, Tutu said: "Justice will ultimately have the last word."

Earlier today, in an interview with the BBC, he proposed sending an international peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe.

He told the BBC he favoured "a mixed force of Africans and others" to protect human rights in the beleaguered African country. "It is a peacekeeping force," he said. "It is not one that is going to be aggressive. It is merely ensuring that human rights are maintained."

The former archbishop said he supported any deal that would stave off conflict in Zimbabwe, but added that he believed the evidence supported claims by the opposition MDC that it had unseated Mugabe.

"Anything that would save the possibilities of bloodshed, of conflict, I am quite willing to support," he said. "The people of Zimbabwe have suffered enough, and we don't...want any more possibilities of bloodshed."

He continued: "In a fraught situation such as we have had in Zimbabwe, anything that is helping towards a move, a transition, from the repression to the possibilities of democracy and freedom, oh, for goodness sake, please let us accept that."

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