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Time to turn the screw on repulsive dictator
William Hague
March 18, 2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/03/18/do1803.xml

No one who saw the images of Morgan Tsvangirai's beaten, scarred and bruised body last week could help being absolutely appalled by the depths to which Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe has sunk.

The footage of teargas in the streets of Harare, stories of brutal police crackdowns on protesters and messages of defiance from an ageing dictator, show that this is a regime, and a country, in crisis.

It did not have to be like this for Zimbabwe. When President Mugabe came to power in 1980, it was one of Africa's most promising economies - abundant in natural resources and with a well-developed financial system and prosperous agricultural sector. It was commonplace at the time for Zimbabwe to be described as the breadbasket of Africa.

Twenty-seven years later, Mugabe's regime has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. The country's inhabitants are poorer than they were in 1970. They live in a land where thousands are killed by disease and malnutrition every month and life expectancy is just 38 years. A place where only 15 per cent of those who can work have a job and where half the population scrape an existence on less than 50p a day.

All this would be more understandable, though no less acceptable, if the country was ravaged by war and conflict. But it is not. The truth is this has all happened during Mr Mugabe's stewardship.

Only two days ago, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, wrote in The Times that whatever President Mugabe might claim, this was not about his personality. I cannot think of one thing it is more about. Make no mistake. Mr Mugabe is not just part of the problem: he is the problem.

The latest violent clampdown last week awoke the wider world, once again, to the nature of his regime. But it should not have surprised us. For years Mr Mugabe's government has imposed draconian laws and undertaken a systematic campaign of violence and intimidation against all forms of opposition in order to maintain its grip on power.

After all, it was his government that evicted 700,000 of its poorest people and demolished their homes in 2005. And it was Mr Mugabe's police force that only last week shot dead the pro-democracy activist, Gift Tandare.

Thus far, the international response to Zimbabwe's tragedy, however well-intentioned, has been ineffectual and has not been able to prevent the situation from deteriorating.

It is time for the international community to say enough is enough, and to make last week's shocking events a turning point in the history of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is crying out for a political settlement that would see an end to Mr Mugabe's dictatorship when his term expires next year, allowing a power-sharing transitional government to take office until new presidential and parliamentary elections can be held. Instead, Mr Mugabe is now trying to force his party to accept changes to the constitution to allow him to extend his rule.

Since Mr Mugabe has demonstrated that he has no intention of negotiating, the international community must urgently increase the pressure on him and his regime.

The European Union imposed restrictive measures against Zimbabwe, including an arms embargo, and a travel ban and assets freeze on Mr Mugabe and members of his regime, in 2002. Since then the measures have been renewed each year - but they have not been substantially increased.

The EU should urgently impose additional European sanctions, including those recently advocated by the respected International Crisis Group. These include widening the scope of the assets freeze to family members and business associates of those already on the lists, cancelling EU visas and residence permits of those on the lists and their family members, and adding the Governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank to the EU list.

The restrictions must be rigorously upheld. In particular, no member of ZANU-PF, including President Mugabe or anyone else who is on the EU sanctions list, should be invited to the summit the EU is holding with the African Union later this year. The EU should also seriously consider applying the assets freeze to Zimbabwean institutions that are identified to be complicit in the abuses that are being carried out by the current regime.

Beyond the EU, we must work with other countries that also have sanctions in place against Zimbabwe, such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, to agree wider financial sanctions that maximise our leverage on the Zimbabwean regime.

As we are seeing with North Korea, financial sanctions can be decisive in inflicting a cost on the leaders who formulate disastrous policies for their countries, without imposing hardship on innocent people.

And perhaps the time is now right for the International Criminal Court to take a close and detailed look at the atrocities committed under the auspices of Mr Mugabe and his government.

We must also urge Zimbabwe's neighbours to make a concerted effort to resolve the crisis and to exploit their many points of influence with the Mugabe regime. We must make the case now that the consequences of a total collapse in Zimbabwe will fall heavily upon them and their region, and urge them to put pressure on the regime to block the extension of Mr Mugabe's rule and engage in talks with the opposition.

It is vital that the international community presents a united front in pursuing a clear strategy that increases the penalties on the Zimbabwean leaders, while showing that there is another way open if they change course. This would be achieved by defining a set of US and EU incentives and disincentives to accompany the sanctions, linked to specific benchmarks of progress by Zimbabwe.

We must make it clear that the international community stands ready to support and assist Zimbabwe, if its leadership is prepared to make the dramatic change needed to give the country a truly democratically elected government - a government that is determined to provide hope and relief for its people, and is committed to economic and governance reform.

The fact that the people of Zimbabwe were brave enough to take to the streets and protest against the Mugabe regime last week is a testament to the resilience and spirit of those caught up in this horrific situation. The time is now right for the international community to show a similar resolve in bringing their misery to an end.

* William Hague is Conservative MP for Richmond, North Yorkshire, and Shadow Foreign Secretary

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