Remove Mugabe, says Tutu
2008-12-05 07:42
Amsterdam - Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Thursday that Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe must step down or be removed by force.
"I think now that the world must say: 'You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down'," Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner, told Dutch current affairs TV programme Nova.
Asked if Mugabe, who has been in power since independence
from Britain in 1980, should be removed by force, Tutu said:
"Yes, by force - if they say to him: step down, and he refuses,
they must do so militarily."
Tutu, who was one of the continent's leading voices against
the former apartheid regime, said the African Union or the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would have the capacity to remove Mugabe, 84.
'Bread basket now a basket case'
"He has destroyed a wonderful country. A country that used
to be a bread basket - it has now become a basket case," Tutu
said.
Tutu's comments came on the day Zimbabwe declared a national
emergency to halt a cholera outbreak that has killed more than
560 people.
Economic meltdown, which many blame on Mugabe, has left the
health service ill-prepared to cope with an epidemic that it
once would have prevented or treated easily.
Once hailed as a model African democrat, Mugabe has become
increasingly criticised, particularly in the West over a
worsening political and economic crisis that critics blame on
his policies.
International help for Zimbabwe's collapsed economy is on
hold while Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai remain deadlocked over implementing a power-sharing arrangement.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party won
parliamentary elections while Mugabe was re-elected as president after Tsvangirai pulled out of a two way run-off, citing intimidation by Mugabe supporters.
- Reuters