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Zim never set deadline for AU report-State
The Daily Mirror
July 13, 2004

http://www.dailymirror.co.zw

The Government of Zimbabwe, contrary to reports that it had set itself a deadline to respond to a damning African Commission on Human and People’s Rights report, did not make such a commitment, the Daily Mirror has established. Reports which emanated from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, insinuate that the Foreign Affairs minister, Stan Mudenge had on July 3, said Harare would respond to the report within a week, when he addressed the African Union (AU) council of ministers when the bloc o f African states met for its annual summit. Government spokesman, George Charamba told the Daily Mirror last night that Mudenge was mischievously quoted. "Setting the record straight, Minister Mudenge said it would not take the Zimbabwean Government not even a week to respond to the contents of the report, assuming that it had been given the right of reply. And, indeed, it did not take him even an hour to respond," said Charamba. This was in reference to Mudenge’s statement that the government had not been availed with the report to peruse for it to make a response at the summit, as stipulated by AU procedure.

The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights report was compiled in 2002, after the presidential election that was won by President Robert Mugabe. The commission, which is an AU organ, reported that the government had launched a systematic clampdown on its opponents, among other abuses during the run –up to the elections. "After all," added Charamba, "why bother to make a response now to a report that was made in 2002, when in less than a year we will be going to other elections?" The report, according to set AU protocol, is supposed to be forwarded to a concerned government via a relevant ambassador and should contain the response of that particular government before it is brought to the council of ministers for subsequent tabling at an AU summit. Mudenge claimed that he only set sight on the document when he went to Addis Ababa. He also said a Tunisian former member of the commission told him the report was not drafted by commission members but by a British-backed non-governmental human rights organisation in Zimbabwe that pushed for its endorsement with the help of one unnamed member of the commission. There is a prevailing view in Zimbabwe that the commission ‘s report should be rejected not only in the case of Zimbabwe, but other countries that have been put under scrutiny.

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