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Mbeki urged to reach out to Zim
22/04/2008 23:07 - (SA)
Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki must reach out to the people of Zimbabwe and the United Nations must impose an arms embargo on the country, said Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba, on Tuesday.
"It is distressing to South Africans that our rulers, whom we know to be compassionate people, appear to many beyond our borders as heartless and unmoved by the suffering of Zimbabweans.
"We recognise that the imperatives of acting as honest brokers in a mediation impose constraints on our leaders.
"However, our failure to communicate our reverence for the dignity of every individual threatens the success of our diplomacy just as surely as would the perception of bias.
"I appeal to President Thabo Mbeki urgently to seek creative ways of reaching out to our neighbours to reassure them that we care about them deeply," said Makgoba.
Calls for UN arms embargo
He said the church opposed the sale of arms to Zimbabwe and commended the efforts of clerics in Durban for taking action to prevent a consignment of arms from China from reaching Zimbabwe across South African land.
"I intend consulting with my brother bishops in Namibia and Angola on ecumenical action to prevent the shipment from being transported through their countries.
"We call on the Security Council of the United Nations to impose an arms embargo on its government.
"We appeal to the South African government to support such an embargo. We will ask our sister churches in countries which are also members of the Security Council to urge their governments to do likewise," he said.
Makgabo described the plight of the Zimbabwean people as "heart-breaking".
They had been "bruised, broken and crushed by oppression and economic hardship" before the April 29 election, but were now even more divided and hopeless than before, he said.
"...every day that goes by without the release of presidential election results erodes yet further any remaining trust people may have in the electoral process."
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