09 December 2008
Bush Says It’s Time for Mugabe Regime to Go
Urges all African leaders to call for Mugabe to leave office
Washington — “It is time for Robert Mugabe to go,” President Bush said December 9 as he urged African leaders from across the region “to step up and join the growing chorus of voices calling for an end to Mugabe’s tyranny.”
In a written statement, Bush said: “Across the continent, African voices are bravely speaking out to say now is the time for him to step down. These leaders share the desire of ordinary Zimbabweans for a return to peace, democracy, and prosperity. We urge others from the region to step up and join the growing chorus of voices calling for an end to Mugabe’s tyranny.”
Bush pledged that the United States will continue to work with its partners around the world to halt the violence and stem the humanitarian disaster that the Mugabe regime is inflicting on its people.
“We stand ready to help rebuild Zimbabwe once a legitimate government has been formed that reflects the results of the March elections,” he added.
U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe James D. McGee echoed that point December 8 as he received the Diplomacy for Freedom Award from the U.S. Department of State at a ceremony commemorating International Human Rights Week.
African leaders must “stand up to Mugabe,” a leader who “needs to go,” McGee told America.gov in an interview shortly after he received the award, adding that the people of Zimbabwe should continue to have hope for better times ahead.
“For the sake of the people of Zimbabwe, Mugabe has to step down,” he said.
McGee asked the people of Zimbabwe to “continue to have hope. Hope is the only thing that is going to take this country out of the dire predicament that it is in. The illegitimate, the illegal Robert Mugabe regime must come to an end and it must come to an end very soon,” McGee said.
“Just as President Bush stated last week, and as we continue to say, this government has no business ruling the fine country of Zimbabwe. The people there deserve so, so much better,” McGee told America.gov.
Asked what the United States is doing to help the people of Zimbabwe, McGee said: “Last year, the United States put about $300 million of assistance into Zimbabwe. About $218 million of that is in food assistance and the rest is assistance to organizations such as the World Food Programme, The Global Fund and direct assistance for health care and those types of issues. HIV/AIDS — the prevalence rate in Zimbabwe has dropped about 4 percent over the past three years,” he said, “due in large part to contributions made by the United States government.”
Commenting on the cholera epidemic now gripping the country, McGee called that situation “totally out of control. It is a reflection of the inability and unwillingness of the [Mugabe] government to take care of its people. This is a situation that did not need to happen, but the government is unwilling to put the money into taking care of its own people. The hospitals are closed, sewage is in the streets. We have no water in the city [Harare]. Of course we are going to have cholera.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presented McGee with his award on behalf of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, as part of its commemoration of Human Rights Week 2008. In her remarks, Rice also again called for Mugabe to leave office.
“I [recently] said in Denmark that it is high time for President Mugabe to go and, Ambassador McGee, I know that you have tried to work to make the electoral process fair and then to make the power-sharing arrangements work.
“But, ultimately,” she continued, “you are working with and for the United States government to make life better for the Zimbabwean people. We deeply hope that that will soon come. It will come only, though, if there is a concerted international response, especially by the countries of the region, to the terrible, terrible humanitarian disaster that has now broken out,” which includes the cholera epidemic, and the “terrible and outrageous behavior of the Mugabe government, and you are leading that effort internationally.”
Rice told those gathered in the State Department’s elegant Treaty Room that “at a time of deepening crisis in Zimbabwe, Ambassador McGee has developed a strategy for his embassy that is designed to support the Zimbabwean people’s demand for democratic change and to train a spotlight on the mounting human rights abuses and to press for free and fair presidential elections.
“In the aftermath of the presidential election in March and in anticipation of the runoff vote in June, the Mugabe regime unleashed a reign of terror against the political opposition and barred most international media from Zimbabwe,” she said.
Rice praised McGee and his embassy team for personally leading convoys of diplomats from like-minded countries and U.S. Embassy personnel to rural hot spots to talk with victims of persecution and witnesses to violence, often greatly risking their own personal safety.
“Ambassador McGee’s strategy of exposing regime violence helped to establish a truth that could not be ignored and contributed to mounting international pressure on Mugabe and his party to enter into a power-sharing arrangement. Thus far, the Mugabe government has refused to implement this agreement in good faith,” Rice said.
See the text of President Bush’s statement on Zimbabwe on America.gov.
