WORLD> Africa
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WORLD> Africa
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African leaders to hold emergency talks on Zimbabwe
(Reuters)
Updated: 2008-06-25 16:04 LONDON - Southern African leaders will hold an emergency meeting in Swaziland's capital Mbabane on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe, officials said.
Earlier, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai urged the United Nations to isolate President Robert Mugabe and said a peacekeeping force was needed in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has shrugged off Monday's unprecedented and unanimous decision by the UN Security Council to condemn violence against the opposition and declare that a free and fair presidential election on Friday was impossible. The Mbabane meeting has been called by the leading regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The leaders of Tanzania, Angola and Swaziland would attend the meeting in their capacity as the SADC's troika organ on politics, defence and security, the Tanzanian government said in a statement. "Others who have been invited to attend the meeting are the current SADC chairman, (President) Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, and the SADC mediator for Zimbabwe, (President) Thabo Mbeki of South Africa," said the statement. "The meeting will discuss how the SADC and its troika organ on politics, defence and security can help Zimbabwe to get out of its current state of conflict." Tsvangirai, who has withdrawn from the election and taken refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare since Sunday, said Zimbabwe would "break" if the world did not come to its aid. Increased pressure Pressure has increased on Mugabe from both inside and outside Africa over Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, blamed by the West and the opposition on the 84-year-old president who has held power for 28 years. The United States has urged SADC to declare both the election and Mugabe's government illegitimate. Angola's state-run ANGOP news agency quoted SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salomao as saying foreign ministers agreed at a meeting on Monday that a "climate of extreme violence" existed in Zimbabwe and that the government must protect the people. Friday's vote was meant to be a run-off between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. The opposition leader won a first round in March but official figures did not give him an outright victory. |
