Britain seeks UN intervention in Zimbabwe

Britain seeks UN intervention in Zimbabwe

MUGABE: His regime is accused of human rights abuses

• Archbishop Ncube calls on UN to arrest Mugabe

• US protests Zimbabwe's relection to UN rights panel

• Annan wants Zim off UN rights panel

• Black murder, white murder

• UN resolution will sober up Mugabe

• SA blocks UN resolution on Zimbabwe

• Annan in amazing blast at Mugabe

• 'All they do is drink tea' - Archbishop Ncube

• AU blasts Zim human rights abuses

• Mugabe to 'rationalise' rights groups

• Zim moves to outlaw charities

• MDC rejects government claims over AU report

• Blair urges Gaddafi to cut Mugabe ties

• IBA calls for ICC trial for Mugabe

• Massacre in Matabeleland

• Mugabe faces class lawsuit over massacres

By Mike Peacock

BRITAIN called on Monday for the United Nations Security Council to debate a housing crackdown in Zimbabwe and what it says are wider human rights abuses, after a visiting senior U.N. official reports back.

Zimbabwe vowed on Monday to step up a new housing program after a clampdown on shanty towns that has left an estimated 300,000 people homeless, prompting an assessment visit by Anna Tibaijuka, a special envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Tibaijuka will spend several days observing the results of "Operation Restore Order," a clean-up campaign that has also demolished tens of thousands of informal trading structures.

She is expected to make a report following her visit.

"That will give the Security Council an opportunity to discuss Zimbabwe and I think we should," Prime Minister Tony Blair told a news conference in his Downing Street residence.

Western countries and organizations including Britain, the United States, the Commonwealth and the European Union have condemned the operation, which has claimed the lives of at least two children crushed to death in demolished houses.

But President Robert Mugabe's government has defended the police blitz, saying it is meant to root out black market trade in scarce foreign currency and basic food commodities -- which had thrived in shantytowns.

"Our people ... deserve much better than the shacks that are now being romanticized as fitting habitats for them," Mugabe said in remarks published in the state media at the weekend.

Critics say the crackdown is retribution against urban Zimbabweans who voted for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in recent elections, targeting the very people who have borne the brunt of the once-rich country's economic meltdown.

In neighboring Mozambique, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Monday increased pressure on African leaders to take a stance on Zimbabwe, rejecting arguments that human rights concerns were a domestic affair.

"The Zimbabwe issue has a dimension that is beyond the internal situation ... because there are human rights concerns," Barroso said after talks with President Armando Guebuza.

Blair called again on Zimbabwe's neighbors to bring pressure to bear on Mugabe.
"The only salvation for Zimbabwe will come from the countries surrounding Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe itself," Blair said.

"I yet again urge those countries ... and their leaders to recognize what is happening in Zimbabwe is a disgrace. It is nothing whatever to do with old colonial disputes with Britain. That is just a pathetic excuse from the Mugabe government."

But Blair refused to call a halt to planned deportations of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers, saying to do so in a blanket way would raise a fresh storm about Britain's asylum system which he has been accused of allowing to run out of control.

"If we introduced a generalized moratorium ... our real fear is we will reopen our system to the abuse we have been shutting down," he said.

More than 40 failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers have gone on hunger strike and members of Blair's Labour party say they should not be sent home to a country the West has condemned.

Blair said those being sent home had their applications rejected as "unjustified" for good reasons. "This is a system that is incredibly sensitive to signals that you send," he said.
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