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Call for international intervention in Zimbabwe
Ecumenical Zimbabwe Network, Pambazuka News
June 25, 2008

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48993

CIDSE, APRODEV and the Ecumenical Zimbabwe Network (EZN) welcome the UN Security Council statement condemning the campaign of violence against Zimbabwe's opposition party. However, diplomatic efforts are clearly failing to provide adequate protection to the people of Zimbabwe or to guarantee a democratic electoral process. CIDSE, APRODEV, and EZN reiterate their call for the United Nations (UN) to conform with its own Security Council resolution 1674, which confirms the "Responsibility to Protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity" as a fundamental international norm.

With no possibility for a legitimate presidential election on 27 June, the international community should act immediately to ensure that ballots are not replaced by bullets. "What is needed" said John Stewart, Director of NOVASC, a Zimbabwean human rights NGO "is international intervention. The direct intervention of an international, African led presence to guarantee security and the protection and safety of the people is necessary. Militias have to be disarmed, disbanded, demobilized; the state security agencies must be reined in and kept under scrutiny, to prevent them continuing with their campaign of violence and terror, and to prepare the processes of a return to the rule of law and extensive security sector reform". Concerted international action is needed to encourage and accompany a determined process to protect and assist the Zimbabwean people, while creating the conditions for legitimate elections in as short a time as possible.

Ahead of the first round of elections in Zimbabwe, CIDSE, APRODEV, EZN and partners in Zimbabwe cautioned that the elections could not be free or fair. "We fear that the government will ruthlessly use fraud and intimidation to steal the elections," said John Stewart at the time. These fears were unfortunately well founded. . Since 29 March, the world has watched the electoral process unravel, the situation deteriorate, and the people suffer. Across the country instances of political killings, violence and torture have been well documented, with over a hundred deaths reported, thousands tortured and beaten and tens of thousands displaced. The June 21st withdrawal of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from the second round of the presidential election must finally end the pretence of a democratic process.

In a country where more than one in four children is orphaned and an estimated four million people are vulnerable and in need of aid, the population is being intimated and lives put at risk by government restrictions on humanitarian aid distribution. Since the government's decision of 4 June to ban humanitarian organizations from distributing aid international and local aid agencies, including CIDSE, APRODEV and EZN members, have been forced to suspend vital support to the Zimbabwean people. The poorest and most vulnerable communities are being hit hardest.

As a joint statement on May 28th from the Archbishops of Canterbury and Cape Town pointed out the violence has extended to attacks inside Anglican churches. The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference has called "for an immediate cessation of violence and all provocative statements and actions" and warns that "electoral processes and outcomes are not an excuse for breaching God's commandments". Churches worldwide joined in a day of prayer for the people of Zimbabwe on 22 June.

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