Mbeki slams US barbs about Zim

London - President Thabo Mbeki criticised the United States for calling Zimbabwe an "outpost of tyranny" saying, in an interview published on Tuesday, that it went against Washington's efforts to promote democracy worldwide.

The comment attacked by Mbeki was made by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who listed six "outposts of tyranny" last month; Zimbabwe, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.

"It's an exaggeration and whatever (the US) government wants to do with that list of six countries, or however many, it's really somewhat discredited," Mbeki told the Financial Times.

South Africa has served as an important mediator with its troubled neighbouring state, trying to encourage reforms through a controversial "quiet diplomacy" that avoids overt criticism of human rights abuse, media clampdowns and harassment of the political opposition in the country.

If South Africa were "to shout, they would shout back at us, and that would be the end of the story", he said.

"I'm actually the only head of government that I know anywhere in the world who has actually gone to Zimbabwe and spoken publicly very critically of the things they're doing."

Mbeki characterised his relations with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as "very good", and repeated his wish to see a "free and fair" vote in parliamentary elections being held there next month.

Mugabe attacks Blair to win votes
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare and David Blair in Johannesburg
(Filed: 22/02/2005) Daily Telegraph London

[Full Text] President Robert Mugabe celebrated his 81st birthday yesterday by portraying Tony Blair as Zimbabwe's chief villain and vowing to defeat him in the forthcoming election.

Mr Mugabe appeared on state television and described the parliamentary polls due on March 31 as a personal battle between him and the Prime Minister.

"I am for the truth, Blair is for the untruthful," said Mr Mugabe. "I would tell him that he is a liar, straightforwardly, on Zimbabwe, and he knows he is telling a lie, a deliberate lie."

These "lies" are, according to the president, Mr Blair's accusations that human rights abuses are taking place in Zimbabwe.

Moreover, Mr Mugabe has convinced himself that Zimbabwe's opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, is nothing more than a British puppet under the direct control of Mr Blair.

Mr Mugabe said the MDC leadership was collaborating with Britain and guilty of "betrayal" and "treason".

He believes that portraying Mr Blair as a pantomime villain and reviving the grievances of the colonial past are vote-winners.

One chapter, headed The Blair Factor, in the ruling Zanu-PF party's election manifesto presents Mr Blair as a Victorian imperialist in the mould of Cecil Rhodes, obsessed with restoring the land that Mr Mugabe seized from all but a handful of Zimbabwe's 4,000 white farmers.

• The European Union yesterday renewed its sanctions targeted on Mr Mugabe's regime. He is among 95 officials banned from visiting any member state. Assets they have in European banks are liable to be frozen and Zimbabwe is also the subject of an arms embargo.

The sanctions, first imposed in 2002, were renewed for another 12 months, but will be reviewed after the election next month. [End]

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