Tutu slams South African silence over Zimbabwe

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu today slammed South Africa’s failure to speak out against human rights violations in Zimbabwe.

“The credibility of our democracy demands this,” he said. “If we are seemingly indifferent to human rights violations happening in a neighbouring country, what is to stop us one day being indifferent to that in our own?”

Tutu’s comments came after South African President Thabo Mbeki shrugged off human rights concerns in Zimbabwe in a blistering attack on the Commonwealth for extending the country’s suspension from the bloc of Britain and its former colonies.

Tutu, former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, also criticised South Africa’s acceptance as ”legitimate” of disputed 2002 elections that returned Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to power for a fifth consecutive term. The polls were widely regarded to have been rigged.

Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against apartheid, said abuses in Zimbabwe were “totally unacceptable and reprehensible.”

He added that he did not understand why the country’s African neighbours had resisted the decision to continue Zimbabwe’s 18 month suspension at a recent Commonwealth summit in Nigeria.

Within hours of the decision, Zimbabwe announced it was quitting the body for good over what it considered to be a challenge to its sovereignty.

Recalling that international sanctions helped end apartheid in South Africa, Tutu said: “We appealed for the world to intervene and interfere in South Africa’s internal affairs. We could not have defeated apartheid on our own.”

Mbeki’s government advocates a policy of “quiet diplomacy” in Zimbabwe, saying it has been working to bring the opposition and Mugabe’s ruling party together for talks.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst political and economic crisis since independence in 1980.

The often-violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks has crippled the agriculture-based economy.

The government has also stepped up a crackdown on political dissent, arresting opposition leaders and shutting down the country’s only independent daily newspaper.