Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, campaigning for re-election in a presidential runoff on June 27, warned he would not cede power to Western-backed opponents, state media reported.
“We shed a lot of blood for this country. We are not going to give up our country for a mere ‘X’ on a ballot. How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?” the Herald quoted Mugabe as saying.
Speaking in the local Shona language in the central Silobela district on Sunday, Mugabe said that the nation threw off colonial domination in a guerrilla war in 1980 and his party was ready to fight again to stop the pro-Western Movement for Democratic Change from gaining control of the government, the paper reported.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking in London with US President George W. Bush, warned on Monday that international election monitors must be allowed to monitor the runoff or risk having Mugabe’s “criminal regime” steal the election.
“[Mugabe’s] criminal cabal ... threatens to make a mockery of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe,” Brown said.
Bush said the US would work with Britain and others to make sure the runoff poll is conducted to international standards.
“The people of Zimbabwe have suffered under the Mugabe leadership and we will work with you to ensure this process leads to free and fair elections, which obviously Mr. Mugabe does not want to happen,” Bush said.
UN special envoy Haile Menkerios arrived in Harare on Monday evening and is expected to meet with Mugabe.
Menkerios has been sent by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with Mugabe’s consent to assist the political situation.
Meanwhile, the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change — the party’s No. 2 — continued to be held in the notoriously harsh police jail in western Harare, his lawyer said.
Tendai Biti did not make a scheduled appearance in court on Monday on treason allegations. Biti had yet to be asked by police to make a formal written “warned and cautioned” statement, needed before he can be arraigned, lawyer Lewis Uriri said.
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