Zimbabwe dismisses talk of UN role in its crisis

HARARE, May 25 (Reuters) Zimbabwe has dismissed South Africa's suggestion of United Nations intervention to end the long-running political and economic crisis in the southern African country, state media reported today.

The report in the state-owned Herald daily also implied President Robert Mugabe's government had not issued a fresh invitation to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to visit.

''Zimbabwe is not a UN issue,'' the Herald quoted Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba as saying.

''What I am aware of is a stale invitation, which was extended to the UN Secretary-General by President Mugabe at the time of the clean-up operation,'' Charamba said, referring to a state crackdown last year on urban shantytowns which the UN said left some 700,000 people homeless.

Charamba was not available to comment on the Herald story.

South African President Thabo Mbeki yesterday spoke of a UN drive to help end Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, which has left its 12 million people facing their worst hardships since independence from Britain in 1980.

He said Annan had told him during a visit to South Africa earlier this year about his contacts with Mugabe's government. Mbeki said the world should await the outcome of Annan's diplomacy instead of prescribing solutions to Zimbabwe's crisis.

Mbeki also told London's Financial Times, after meeting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that Zimbabwe had agreed to a visit by Annan and was involved in its planning.

But Charamba said the Harare government was ''unaware of any UN intervention on Zimbabwe'', according to the Herald.

Charamba said the need for Annan to visit had since been removed by the government's construction of houses to replace those destroyed in 2005.

Critics describe the pace of the rebuilding programme as too slow and say thousands remain out in the cold.

The critics say the so-called cleanup worsened the plight of Zimbabweans grappling with the world's highest inflation rate, unemployment of over 70 per cent and chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, all widely blamed on government mismanagement.

Mugabe, in power since 1980, denies responsibility, and in turn accuses former colonial power Britain of spearheading a Western campaign to sabotage Zimbabwe's economy because of his seizure of white-owned commercial farms for allocation to blacks.

''Zimbabwe is under sanctions, illegal sanctions, from the European Union and United States and this in respect of its land reform programme,'' Charamba said, referring to travel sanctions on Harare's ruling elite. The government says the limited measure has in fact affected the entire country.

''This is a bilateral matter between Britain and Zimbabwe. It's not a UN matter. Zimbabwe's expectation was, and remains, that the UN should have challenged the illegal sanctions imposed on it,'' Charamba told the Herald.

Yesterday top UN officials in New York played down speculation of a UN initiative on Zimbabwe and said it was too early to talk of a deal involving international aid and Mugabe's possible resignation.

REUTERS PR VV1604