Mugabe turns to China as UN pressure builds

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – President Robert Mugabe won financial
and diplomatic support from China on Tuesday as Zimbabwe came
under increased pressure from the United Nations over slum
demolitions.

Visiting Beijing on Tuesday, Mugabe and Chinese leader Hu
Jintao signed a deal on economic and technical cooperation,
though neither side said what it contained.

But faced with targeted sanctions from the European Union
and Washington and cut off since 1999 from fresh International
Monetary Fund and World Bank support, Mugabe’s spokesman has
said the government is exploring new lines of credit to help
deal with some $4.5 billion in foreign debts.

Hu praised Mugabe for making “major contributions to the
friendly relations between our two countries.”

“I stand ready to have an in-depth exchange of views with
your excellency on our bilateral relations,” Hu said at the
start of their meeting.

Tuesday’s deal gave Mugabe a boost as he faces growing
isolation from the West and pressure from the United Nations to
end the demolition program and give unfettered humanitarian
access to some 700,000 people it estimates have been left
without homes, jobs or both.

U.N. Children’s Fund UNICEF said more than 220,000 children
had lost their homes in two months, adding it was “horrified at
reports of children dying of easily treatable respiratory
infections and of women being forced to give birth in the
open.”

Mugabe says the clearances targeted unregistered shantytown
buildings and illegal trading in hard currency, food and other
commodities that are scarce due to a serious economic crisis.

The government has said the demolitions have been
suspended, but a U.N. official in Zimbabwe said on Monday that
it had reports that the operation was continuing in eastern
areas.

UNDER PRESSURE

Anna Tibaijuka, special envoy of U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, published a damning report on Friday branding the
demolitions a “disastrous adventure.”

U.N. Human Rights chief Louise Arbour kept the pressure on
Mugabe, reinforcing Tibaijuka’s calls to end the demolitions.

“I echo her call and that of the secretary-general first
for the government to put an end to a practice that has caused
and continues to cause immense hardship,” Arbour told reporters
in Geneva on Tuesday.

“I also echo the calls for those responsible for this
extremely misguided initiative to be held to account, for
reparations to be paid to the victims and for the government to
facilitate the deployment of humanitarian assistance at the
earliest opportunity.”

In Harare, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
said Tibaijuka’s report had vindicated claims by his Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) that up to 2 million people had
been affected by the clearance operation, and urged Arbour’s
agency to dispatch a human rights envoy to the country.

MDC CALLS FOR RAPPORTEUR

The MDC has said the crackdown was a punitive move against
Zimbabwe’s urban dwellers who have largely supported the
opposition in elections since its formation in 1999.

“We believe significant progress can be registered in the
search for a lasting solution if … the U.N. sends to Harare a
rapporteur from the U.N. Human Rights Commission to undertake a
comprehensive investigation into the situation in our country,”
Tsvangirai told journalists.

Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe needed international support to
help feed its people after a devastating drought this year.

But Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Secretary
Lancaster Museka told state media on Tuesday the country would
not formally ask the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) for help.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck in Beijing and Richard
Waddington in Geneva)