Rice urges global action to end political violence

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By Betsy Pisik

NEW YORK | Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded greater international action Thursday on Zimbabwe before and during next week's runoff elections.

She spoke at the United Nations hours after the beaten bodies of four opposition figures were discovered, and a prominent political figure was accused of attempting to overthrow the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

"We have reached the point where broader, stronger international action is needed," said Miss Rice at a meeting of U.N. Security Council nations and countries on Southern African Development Commission.

She said the council demands that political violence end immediately, and that Mr. Mugabe's government accept international election monitors.

"By its actions, the Mugabe regime has given up any pretense that the June 27 elections will be allowed to proceed in a free and fair manner," she said, noting that opposition supporters have been killed and thousands injured in recent weeks.

Mr. Mugabe claims his opponents are puppets of the U.S. and former colonial power Britain.

Miss Rice told reporters the council would again take up the matter next week. A runoff election is scheduled for June 27.

Much of the violence has been committed by police, soldiers or self-described veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war who support Mr. Mugabe at the polls and on the streets, according to human rights groups.

On Wednesday, four activists were abducted in Chitungwiza, about 15 miles south of the capital, and assaulted with iron bars, clubs and guns, Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told reporters.

A Zimbabwe high court on Thursday charged MDC general secretary Tendai Biti with vote rigging and treason, crimes that carry the death penalty.

He is accused by the government of seeking "to render the country ungovernable including the possibility of resorting to an armed insurrection," according to a correspondent in Harare for Agence France-Presse.

MDC officials say more than 60 of their party members have been killed in recent weeks, often grisly deaths involving burnings, beatings and torture.

International observers say June 27 elections are not likely to be free and fair, as the nation is convulsed by hunger, homelessness and political unrest.

Inflation has spiraled to the point where a loaf of bread costs millions of Zimbabwean dollars and the majority of Zimbabweans cannot afford food, shelter and necessary items.

"It is a country on the brink of starvation," U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe Jim McGee told reporters Thursday in Pretoria, South Africa, wire services reported. "It has already fallen off the precipice of economic collapse and is sinking into a seemingly bottomless abyss."

Nearly half the population is at risk of famine, according to a report released Wednesday by the U.N. World Food Program and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.