Region urged to send rights monitors to Zimbabwe

LUSAKA, Aug 14 (Reuters) Southern African leaders need to send human rights monitors to Zimbabwe and take strong action to force the government to end the political crisis there, Human Rights Watch said today.

The rights watchdog said in a briefing paper released ahead of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Zambia that the region's leaders must acknowledge the problems facing Zimbabweans and take effective action to help solve them.

''The summit should make a public acknowledgement of ongoing human rights problems ... and deploy SADC human rights monitors as an essential first step in protecting Zimbabweans from state brutality,'' the body said.

SADC leaders meet in the Zambian capital Lusaka on August 16-17 and South African President Thabo Mbeki is expected to report on his attempts to broker a deal between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government and the opposition.

HRW urged the SADC leaders to repudiate political crackdowns in Zimbabwe.

''Human Rights Watch called upon SADC to send a clear, visible and unambiguous message from this week's summit, repudiating the Zimbabwean government's policy of political repression through laws and the unaccountability of Zimbabwe's police, army and security forces,'' it said.

The SADC asked Mbeki in March to mediate talks between Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The request followed a violent crackdown on MDC activists which triggered international outrage and renewed calls on African nations to put pressure on Mugabe to agree to political reforms. The SADC stopped short of condemning the crackdown.

HRW Africa Director Peter Takirambudde said in a statement that the SADC could only nurture a political and economic revival in Zimbabwe by addressing human rights violations there.

''The political and human rights crisis in Zimbabwe, which threatens to destabilize the whole region, is crying out for urgent and effective leadership,'' Takirambudde said.

Formerly prosperous, Zimbabwe is suffering from an economic crisis that includes hyper-inflation, food shortages and high unemployment.

Mugabe, 83, blames the crisis on Western sanctions. Critics say Mugabe is at fault because the economy's problems stem from his controversial policy of farm seizures.

Talks between Zimbabwe's government and opposition have come under close scrutiny in the region because thousands of Zimbabweans trying to escape poverty and rampant unemployment cross the border to neighbouring South Africa illegally.

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