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Opposition 'clear victor' in Zimbabwe: U.S.
Celia W. Dugger, David Barboza and Alan Cowell, New York Times
April 25, 2008

View article on the New York Times website

Pretoria - The top American envoy to Africa declared Thursday that Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was the "clear victor" over President Robert Mugabe in the nation's disputed election and called on other countries — including the United States — to help solve the deepening political and humanitarian crisis there.

The diplomat, Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the election results, based on projections by independent monitors, removed the rationale for any negotiated settlement that left Mr. Mugabe in charge, as was proposed Wednesday in an editorial in The Herald, the state-run newspaper.

"This is a government rejecting the will of the people," Ms. Frazer said, referring to the Zimbabwe electoral commission's refusal to announce who won the March 29 presidential election. "If they had voted for Mugabe, the results would already have been announced. Everyone knows what time it is."

The United States has deferred in recent years to South Africa, the region's most powerful nation, to mediate between ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe's governing party, and its political rivals. But at a news briefing on Thursday in Pretoria, South Africa's capital, Ms. Frazer said the severity of the human rights violations by state-sponsored groups against opposition supporters now required the involvement of more players: the African Union, the United Nations and other nations, including the United States.

"We can't stand back and wait for this to escalate further," she said.

Earlier Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry confirmed that a Chinese ship bound for Zimbabwe would turn back without unloading its cargo of bullets and mortar bombs made by a Chinese state-owned company.

"The Chinese company has already decided to send the military goods back to China in the same vessel, the An Yue Jiang," Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a briefing.

The arms shipment has been a particularly contentious issue because of widespread concerns about politically motivated violence in the wake of the elections.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said Wednesday in Parliament that he would "promote proposals for an embargo on all arms to Zimbabwe." On Thursday Ms. Frazer praised his idea as one that the United States would "consider seriously."

Mr. Mugabe, 84, who has led Zimbabwe for 28 years, will undoubtedly seize on their criticism to buttress his contention that only he can defend the nation's sovereignty. He has long depicted himself as the defiant African leader who will stand up to the British and the Americans, while painting his rival, Mr. Tsvangirai, as their stooge.

Jacob G. Zuma — the leader of South Africa's governing party, the African National Congress, and potentially a future president of South Africa — said Wednesday that he was concerned that the British and the Americans had undercut their influence on Zimbabwe.

Speaking before a meeting with Mr. Brown, who has accused Mr. Mugabe of stealing the election, Mr. Zuma said the approach the British and the Americans had taken "undermined the possibility of their playing a meaningful role in Zimbabwe."

On Thursday, he said in London that he did not support Mr. Brown's call for a full-fledged arms embargo and ruled out South African military intervention in Zimbabwe. South Africa's opinion on an embargo is critical because it controls the main trade routes into Zimbabwe.

Even so, China's decision to turn the ship around was welcomed by the dock workers, trade unionists, religious leaders, Western diplomats and human rights workers who have been campaigning to block the delivery of the weapons to Zimbabwe.

"This is a great victory for the trade union movement in particular and civil society in general in putting its foot down and saying we will not allow weapons that could be used to kill and maim our fellow workers and Zimbabweans to be transported across South Africa," said Patrick Craven, spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which represents 1.9 million South African workers.

China's strategic retreat in delivering the weapons also allows it to avoid Zimbabwe-related protests over its human rights record before the Olympic Games in Beijing in August. The months leading to the Games have already been marked by protests over China's suppression of protesters in Tibet and criticism of it for supplying arms to the government of Sudan.

In Britain, Anglican church leaders warned of the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe and urged international mediation.

The leaders — the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, and the archbishop of York, John Sentamu — issued a statement saying people were being "beaten, intimidated or oppressed" and warning that "political violence and drift could unleash spiraling communal violence," as has been seen elsewhere in Africa.

Zimbabwe's governing party has been following the fate of the arms shipment. The Herald, a mouthpiece for Mr. Mugabe and ZANU-PF, reported Thursday that China had said the shipment had been ordered before the elections and had nothing to do with "what was taking place in Zimbabwe at the moment."

It quoted Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa as saying that Zimbabwe had a right to arm itself and defend its territorial integrity and "dismissing suggestions that the military would want to use the arms against civilians."

Human rights researchers and doctors treating victims of the political crackdown in Zimbabwe said they feared that a government short on bullets because of the country's economic collapse would use an infusion of arms from China to make the crackdown more lethal.

The ship sailed into Durban harbor in South Africa last week. The government there had already issued a permit to allow the arms to be trucked across South Africa to landlocked Zimbabwe when dock workers declared they would not unload the weapons, and an Anglican archbishop persuaded a judge to temporarily prohibit the arms delivery across South African soil.

*Celia W. Dugger reported from Pretoria, David Barboza from Shanghai and Alan Cowell from London. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

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