U.S. to push for travel ban, arms embargo on Zimbabwe: Bush
Last Updated: Saturday, June 28, 2008 | 9:00 AM ET
CBC News
U.S. President George W. Bush said Washington will press the United Nations to impose further sanctions on Zimbabwe following the run-off election condemned by the international community.
"We will press for strong action by the United Nations, including an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and travel ban on regime officials," said Bush, who had previously called the election a "sham."
Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper has reported a "massive" turnout for the country's single-candidate presidential election and predicted a landslide victory for President Robert Mugabe. But observers said the few Zimbabweans who went to the polls did so only out of fear.
"The international community has condemned the Mugabe regime's ruthless campaign of politically motivated violence and intimidation with a strong and unified voice that makes clear that yesterday's election was in no way free and fair," Bush said.
Two women take time to look at results of the presidential run-off election, outside a polling station in Harare, on Saturday. (Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press) The European Union said it would not rule out taking sanctions against "those responsible for the tragic events of recent months," according to an EU presidency statement.
But Zimbabwean Deputy Minister of Information Bright Matonga said "the United States government and the British government should not see Zimbabwe as an enemy," CNN reported.
"They should see Zimbabwe as a partner because of what we can offer to the world because of our stability, because of our education, because of our resources, our mineral resources," he said. "They need to respect Zimbabwe."
Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission and a parliamentarian from Swaziland, said many people were intimidated into voting.
He said he talked to people who dipped their fingers in the red indelible ink at polling stations, to protect themselves from hooligans, before deliberately destroying their ballots.
Justice Minister and senior ZANU-PF member Patrick Chinamasa said the party was expecting results either Saturday or Sunday.
"From the information filtering in, it looks like a clear win for our president," he said.
South Africa's ruling African National Congress party, meanwhile, warned that the current situation in neighbouring Zimbabwe was "out of control."
Speaking at a business awards ceremony in Johannesburg on Friday evening, party president Jacob Zuma called for a political arrangement to be found in Zimbabwe "for the good of all of us."
Mugabe became the only candidate in Friday's run-off after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, citing violence against his supporters. Tsvangirai remains sheltered at the Dutch Embassy in Harare.
Roaming bands of government supporters harassed and threatened people into voting for Mugabe, who has ruled the country since it gained independence from Britain in 1980.
Those who voted said backers of the ruling party demanded the serial numbers of ballots to verify whether they chose Mugabe.
Zuma said the situation in Zimbabwe was creating problems for neighbouring countries, which have previously shown sympathy with Mugabe's stance that he must fight threats of a return to imperialism.
"If countries ill-treat their citizens then their citizens would do a number of things and it will impact on the neighbours," the ANC leader said in a veiled reference to clashes between South Africans in the poorest parts of the country and refugees from Zimbabwe and other neighbouring nations.
Zimbabweans driven from squatter camps
The clashes last week killed 22 people and underscored the bitter frustration of South Africa's poor with the government's failure to deliver enough jobs, housing and schools.
Foreigners, many of them Zimbabweans who had fled economic collapse and political violence in their homeland, were being driven from shacks in squatter camps.
Zuma's words stand in sharp contrast to the South African government's actions. It blocked a move by the United Nations Security Council on Friday to declare the vote illegitimate, something Tsvangirai is urging the world to do.
The British-drafted statement would have stated that the results "could have no credibility or legitimacy."
Without South Africa's influential voice condemning Mugabe, observers say it's unlikely African leaders will speak out forcefully when they come face to face with him at a meeting of the African Union in Egypt on Monday.
With files from the Associated Press
