WASHINGTON: Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, has called on world leaders to pressure Robert Mugabe to step down, labelling the regime of the Zimbabwean despot “an eyesore on the African continent”.
Mr Odinga said the international community should pressure Mugabe to step down and should send peacekeepers to Zimbabwe to oversee free and fair elections there.
“Do we have conditions for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe at the moment? The answer is no, you don’t,” Mr Odinga said of a June 27 runoff presidential vote between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
“It’s already been pre-rigged,” Mr Odinga said, citing beatings and arrests, arson, the repeated detention of Mr Tsvangirai and more than 100,000 soldiers already casting ballots under the watchful eyes of police.
“It would be best for the international community to insist for Mugabe to step down, and send an international peacekeeping force,” he said.
Mr Odinga criticised fellow African leaders for failing to speak out against the violence plaguing Zimbabwe ahead of the presidential polls.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who was due to meet Mugabe overnight, has come under fire for his policy of quiet diplomacy towards the neighbouring country.
“Zimbabwe is an eyesore on the African continent … an example of how not to do it. I’m sad that so many heads of state in Africa have remained quiet when disaster is looming in Zimbabwe,” Mr Odinga said.
Mugabe has threatened to arrest opposition leaders amid mounting violence in his country ahead of this month’s runoff in which he faces the most serious challenge to his 28-year rule.
A senior UN official, Haile Menkerios, met Mugabe in Harare yesterday, as part of a trip to assess the political situation in the country. The opposition, led by Mr Tsvangirai, has said more than 60 of their supporters have been killed since the first round of the presidential elections in March.
Mr Odinga told a discussion run by Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies that he had been “declared enemy number one in Zimbabwe” for criticising the country’s leaders.
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API-source.AFP
