NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON – President Bush called yesterday for an international arms embargo against Zimbabwe in the wake of last week's “sham election” and announced that the United States is drafting new economic sanctions that, for the first time, would target the entire government of President Robert Mugabe.
“The international community has condemned the Mugabe regime's ruthless campaign of politically motivated violence and intimidation,” Bush said in a statement from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. He added that he had directed his secretaries of treasury and state to develop sanctions “against this illegitimate government of Zimbabwe and those who support it.”
The announcement came a day after Zimbabweans voted in a presidential runoff that has been widely denounced by Western leaders because of state-sponsored violence and widespread efforts to intimidate voters if they failed to cast their ballots for Mugabe, 84, the sole candidate.
The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, dropped out of the race, citing attacks against his supporters, and later sought refuge at the Dutch Embassy.
The call for an arms embargo, which Bush coupled with a proposed ban on travel by officials of the Mugabe government, is unlikely to be successful. U.S. officials said it would almost certainly run into opposition at the United Nations from South Africa, Russia and China; South Africa's position has long been that the Zimbabwe election is an internal affair.
The United States' own sanctions, by contrast, can be carried out unilaterally. U.S. officials and outside experts said the plan is to put pressure on Zimbabwe's gold-and platinum-mining industry, a crucial source of foreign exchange for a government that is very short of it.
The sanctions are expected to restrict the Zimbabwean government's ability to do business with U.S. companies, although it is unclear which agencies or state-controlled businesses would be affected.
By taking the rare step of imposing sanctions on the entire government, the United States would put Zimbabwe in a league with nations such as North Korea and Iran – a significant expansion of current policy. The Bush administration has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, but they currently apply to only about 140 members of the governing elite and the businesses they own and control.
“This certainly steps up pretty dramatically the scale of punitive action,” said J. Stephen Morrison, who directs the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and who worked on Africa issues in the State Department under President Clinton.
White House officials said the sanctions, which would take at least two weeks to draw up and carry out, could still be averted if Mugabe installs what the United States considers a legitimate government. Tsvangirai drew more votes in the general election in March, winning 48 percent of the vote to Mugabe's 43 percent. The runoff was called because neither side had a majority.
