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Mandela Condemns Mugabe's Regime

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The Associated Press

Published: June 26, 2008

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - President Robert Mugabe faced deeper international isolation Wednesday, with African states demanding that a discredited runoff election be postponed and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela rebuking the Zimbabwe leader for the first time.

Tougher sanctions, sporting bans and economic boycotts could be next - and world support may build for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who called Wednesday for talks on power sharing.

Regional heads of state from southern Africa met in Swaziland and said Friday's runoff should be postponed until conditions permitted a free and fair vote.

President Bush said the runoff election appears to be a "sham," joining the international condemnation of Mugabe's actions.

In London, Mandela made a carefully worded but pointed attack on Mugabe, saying there has been a "tragic failure of leadership in our neighboring Zimbabwe."

For Mugabe, they are a rebuke from a leader he sees as a fellow freedom fighter, and will be hard to dismiss or ridicule - so often Mugabe's response to criticism.

Tsvangirai made the call for peacekeepers in a commentary published Wednesday in British newspaper The Guardian.

Asked about it at a news conference later in Harare, Tsvangirai said: "What do you do when you don't have guns and the people are being brutalized out there?"
Queen Elizabeth II stripped Mugabe of his knighthood. He was made an honorary knight in 1994, when he was considered an anti-colonial hero.

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