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Bush widens sanctions against Zimbabwe

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush is targeting the U.S. accounts of leading government officials in Zimbabwe, saying those who work with President Robert Mugabe must restore democracy or face sanctions.

The White House announced Wednesday that Bush had signed an executive order Tuesday blocking all property and financial holdings in the United States owned by 128 people and 33 institutions in Zimbabwe.

It also bars U.S. citizens from having financial dealings with them.

"This action is not aimed at the people of Zimbabwe, but rather at those most responsible for their plight," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Bush already had issued sanctions against Mugabe and 76 other officials under an executive order signed in March 2003. Tuesday's order added 53 people and applied to their immediate family members. It also allows the secretary of state and treasury secretary to expand the list without a presidential order.

Bush said that since the first order, conditions in Zimbabwe had continued to deteriorate.

"The government continues to suppress opposition groups and civil society, undermine the independent media, ignore decisions by its courts, and refuse to enter into meaningful negotiations with other political actors," Bush wrote in a leader to congressional leaders.

"Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections in March 2005 were not free or fair. Recent demolitions of low income housing and informal markets have caused 700,000 people to lose their homes, jobs, or both. Additional measures are required to promote democratic change."

The United States has refused to recognize Mugabe as winner of last March's presidential election, which was seen widely as rigged.

Mugabe led Zimbabwe to independence from Britain in 1980 and had its name changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, harking back to a great city in the country built by an advanced ancient culture. Mugabe has become increasingly authoritarian, spearheading media controls and takeovers of white-owned farms.

Those and other policies have led to Zimbabwe's increasing international isolation and raised criticism from opponents at home.

Mugabe's government has seized thousands of white-owned commercial farms since 2000 under a land-reform program critics say has crippled Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy and contributed to widespread hunger there. About 4 million Zimbabweans, or a third of the population, urgently need food aid, according to U.N. estimates.

Mugabe defended the seizures as "redressing the past gross imbalances in land ownership which were institutionalized by British colonialism." Until 2000, whites farmed 17 percent of the country and earned most of its export revenue.

Recent constitutional changes in Zimbabwe will prevent white owners from recovering confiscated farms and could be used to strip critics of their passports and right to travel.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe that include banning Mugabe and other government officials from traveling to EU countries.

i dunno what to make of this

as bush not 2 far behind Mugabe

VINCYPOWA:

Your Article left out the MOST IMPORTANT REASON why the US has SUDDENLY decided on this action against Zimbabwe AFTER ALL THESE YEARS of Mauvais Languing Mugabe:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4455324.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...647041,00.html

Also isn't it interesting that after holding the US Ambassador at Gunpoint-----de Yankees STILL Maintain Diplomatic Relations with Zimbabwe:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4420864.stm

Doesn't surprise me one bit, seeing as the US essentially wants to be THE only country with nuclear capability. *roll eyes*

same us government that supported south africa.. until black leaders protested..

I just see it as one lying, thieving criminal being a moral judge of another lying, thieving criminal. Perhaps it’s because Bush sees in Mugabe a reflection of his own self. There’s no getting around the fact that Mugabe is a disgrace and a traitor to the Liberation struggle of Zimbabwe and Africa in general, he is using the race card to deflect from his own exploitation of his people while he, his family and his inner circle live lives of luxury. If there’s any doubt about that, compare Mugabe to the late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. I mean, I agree with the spirit of his land reforms; as far as I’m concerned the descendents of the white settlers aren’t entitled to one f**k. But to do so ONLY because one wants to divert attention away from one’s own lavish life and exploitative regime makes a mockery of the whole venture.

At the same time, Bush, who has no moral authority whatsoever, is simply sending a message that all of us are familiar with: don’t bite the hand that fed you and don’t forget who made you what you are. In spite of Mugabe’s slogan during the Liberation War of “One settler, one bullet”, he and the ZanuPF party was assisted into power because the alternative, the Marxist ZAPU, would not have danced to any tune from Washington. In any case, the context of the Cold War meant that there was no way any Marxist group would be permitted to hold power, especially in Africa.

Even today, some of the more radical or forward thinking Pan-African groups in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa is making Washington nervous. Think about it; what would happen if many of these groups or their philosophies were to take hold in a continent that has been systematically exploited by the West since 1884 – ok, since the 1500s. Think about these groups that have not forgotten who assisted the white minority governments in Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Angola, etc, with mercenaries and serving members of their armed forces; pharmaceutical companies and multinationals like Price-Waterhouse Coopers, Pfizer, Shell, Firestone, Cadbury’s who funded or experimented with poisons on the lands AND people during the 70s and 80s. You gonna allow them to get into power or let Mugabe give you lip? Washington already has enough trouble from Chavez and Castro; Bush himself is facing revolt from within his own party.