Keep Zimbabwe Out, Human Rights Groups Urges

by Maputo published on November 24, 2003 in allafrica.com

A leading human rights NGO, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), has called on Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, not to invited Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, to the Commonwealth summit due to be held in Abuja in December.

A statement from CHRI, received by AIM, notes recent reports indicating that Mugabe is putting pressure on Obasanjo to send him an invitation to attend the Abuja gathering.

Mugabe's request, it adds, "comes despite the fact that the Commonwealth has unanimously agreed that Zimbabwe be suspended from the Commonwealth because of the failure of the Zimbabwean Government to uphold the principles of the Commonwealth's Harare Declaration, including respect for democracy, the rule of law and human rights".

The statement rejects the attempts by the Zimbabwean regime to turn the issue into a racial one, and Mugabe's claim that the drive to keep Zimbabwe suspended is spearheaded by Britain and Australia.

It stresses that the CHRI (which is based, not in Britain or Australia, but in New Delhi, India) is "committed to working for the practical realisation of all people throughout the Commonwealth", and does not support racial interpretations of the dispute.

The CHRI, the statement continues, "maintains that Zimbabwe must remain suspended until the Government demonstrates that it is committed to upholding the principles to which the Commonwealth is committed, including a commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights".

The Harare government's "continued disregard for the human rights of its people, both black and white, is distressing and cannot be ignored", CHRI declares. "To attempt to characterise the international community's condemnation of the Government's actions as racially-based disrespect the continued suffering of many millions of Zimbabwean's throughout the country".

The CHRI lists some of the flagrant violations of basic rights committed by the Zimbabwean authorities, including its attacks on independent media such as the "Daily News", and the recent arrests of members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) during peaceful demonstrations.

The statement calls on Obasanjo "to demonstrate his solidarity and concern for the Zimbabwean people by refusing to succumb to President Mugabe's cynical attempts to play the 'race card' and justify the suffering he has inflicted on his own people on racial grounds".

It suggests that Obasanjo should "demonstrate his vision and commitment to an Africa striving to better the lives of all its people and ensure the practical realisation of their human rights, by supporting Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth and declining to invite President Mugabe to next month's summit.

The people of Zimbabwe deserve no less".