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Close borders with Zimbabwe says Botswana minister
Zimbabwe's neighbors should close their borders in an attempt to bring down President Robert Mugabe, Botswana's foreign minister said Wednesday in the strongest call yet for action from Africa.
- Agencies
- Published: 18:48 November 26, 2008
Johannesburg: Zimbabwe's neighbors should close their borders in an attempt to bring down President Robert Mugabe, Botswana's foreign minister said Wednesday in the strongest call yet for action from Africa.
Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani told BBC World News television that southern African nations have failed to move Mugabe with mediation and they should now impose sanctions.
The leaders should "tell Mugabe to his face, 'Look, now you are on your own, we are switching off, we are closing your borders,' and I don't think he would last. If no petrol went in for a week, he can't last," Skelemani said.
Zimbabwe's government made no immediate comment.
Botswana and Zambia have been lonely African voices against Mugabe as Zimbabwe has undergone an economic and political crisis in which agriculture, health and education services have collapsed and shortages of food, clean water, medicine, electricity and fuel have become routine.
South Africa began taking a harder line last week, announcing it was withholding 30 million rand ($3.3 million) in agricultural aid until Mugabe forms a coalition government with the opposition. It still appears unlikely to heed Botswana's call for a closure of its border, the lifeline for landlocked Zimbabwe, for fear of creating a wider humanitarian crisis.
South Africa is hosting a new round of talks aimed at getting Zimbabwe's rival parties to agree on wording of a constitutional amendment that would form the legal basis for a unity government with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister.
But opposition sources said Wednesday the two sides cannot even agree on what to discuss and are meeting "without prejudice" - meaning nothing binding will result.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a media blackout imposed by the mediator, said opposition negotiators are pressing renewed calls for the withdrawal of mediator Thabo Mbeki, the ousted South
African president whom they accuse of favoring Mugabe.
Among other issues, Tsvangirai's party wants to negotiate the sharing of Cabinet posts. Mugabe's party, according to secretary-general Kumbirai Kangai, is prepared only to give them the finance ministry among key portfolios and to share the contentious post of home affairs. That ministry is responsible for police who helped brutalize opposition members and supporters during campaigns around disputed presidential elections this year.
Mugabe, who has unilaterally given his own party all the main Cabinet posts, indicated his continuing hard stance Wednesday through a state media announcement extending central bank head Gideon Gono's tenure for another five years.
Gono has been denounced by the opposition as he has presided over the near-collapse of Zimbabwe's banking system and the Zimbabwean dollar. Gono removed 13 zeros from the currency and constantly prints more money in an
attempt to keep up with inflation running in the hundreds of millions of percentage points. Today, the highest denomination note of 1 million Zimbabwe dollars is not enough to buy a loaf of bread.
The United States on Tuesday tried to increase pressure on Mugabe by adding four of his "cronies" to a list of scores under financial sanctions.
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