Rights groups lash out at African leaders for supporting Mugabe

By Alex Bell
15 January 2009

Three of the world’s leading human rights organisations have lashed out at African leaders for failing to take action in Zimbabwe, in the strongest criticism yet of the ongoing support for Robert Mugabe.

The International Bar Association (IBA), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have this week all released strong statements condemning the continued inaction of African leaders in the Zimbabwe crisis. The statements come as 11 activists abducted by state security agents in recent weeks have yet to be found, and while almost 30 more are being held in custody on trumped up charges of terrorism.

The IBA on Wednesday accused Southern African leaders of blocking attempts by the international community to hold Mugabe’s government accountable for violating human rights. The group has urged Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to take immediate action in ensuring the activists are freed, saying the regional body “has an obligation to act on the crimes of Robert Mugabe’s government.”

IBA executive director Mark Ellis said in a statement that “to date SADC has blocked outside initiatives to hold Mugabe’s regime accountable for its abuses and has been silent while international law is violated with impunity.”

At the same time, Amnesty International on Wednesday said the failure of African leadership in the form of the African Union (AU) is ‘prolonging’ the human rights crisis in Zimbabwe, this as evidence of the brutal torture endured by the abducted activists was revealed this week. The organisation said that the “ongoing arrests of human rights and political activists appear to be part of a wider strategy to silence critics of the government, and the AU needs to make a strong statement that this is unacceptable to African leadership.”

The group’s Zimbabwe campaigner, Amy Agnew, on Wednesday expressed extreme disappointment over the AU’s continued silence on the Zimbabwe crisis, and said it was time the body started showing “solidarity with the Zimbabwean people.” She accused the AU of being an exclusive “club of leaders who support each other’s goals, no matter what the cost” and explained that a campaign to pressure the body into action would intensify in the coming days.

The criticism was also echoed on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch, who said the inaction of African leaders in the Zimbabwe crisis has become “a blot on the credibility” of regional peace efforts. The group singled out the South African government for particular criticism saying it has been “backing a repressive leader rather than his suffering victims,” and accused former President Thabo Mbeki of straying from the ideals that guided the fight against apartheid. The criticism comes as a South African foreign ministry official told media in Johannesburg this week that the government still supports a unity deal as the only way forward to end the crisis in Zimbabwe.