Southern African leaders Thursday emerged from a conference in Tanzania's capital allied with embattled Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and calling for the lifting of all sanctions against his government. Mugabe maintains a tight grip on power as his country spirals into economic disaster.After the Southern Africa Development Community emergency summit, Mugabe described the meeting as "excellent." "We are one with our neighbors," he said.
Mugabe has been condemned by the West and human rights groups for arrests and reported intimidation and beatings of his political opponents. His forces have been accused of severely beating opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara on March 11.
The SADC meeting comes a day after Zimbabwean forces raided the Harare headquarters of the opposition, Movement for Democratic Change, the country's main opposition group, and detained about 10 MDC staff and officials. Police said the raid was part of an overall initiative to arrest people responsible for throwing petrol bombs around Harare.
MDC officials said it was just another attempt to intimidate the opposition group. Tsvangirai was among those detained, just before he was to hold a news conference from the headquarters, MDC officials said. Government police denied that Tsvangirai was among those arrested.
A joint communique issued by the 14 SADC leaders reaffirmed the group's solidarity with Zimbabwe's government and people, and mandated that South African President Thabo Mbeki continue his efforts to facilitate dialogue between Zimbabwe's opposition groups and the government. In the communique, the SADC leaders also encouraged better diplomatic contacts to resolve the situation in Zimbabwe and called for the lifting of all economic sanctions.