Zimbabwe’s Mugabe appeals for conciliation

HARARE, Zimbabwe | Zimbabweans celebrated their first Independence Day under a coalition government Saturday, with President Robert Mugabe calling for national conciliation as he shared the stage with his former political rival.

As on past anniversaries, the military paraded and fighter planes flew over the main stadium in the capital, Harare.

But this year’s proceedings were “indeed unique,” Mr. Mugabe told the crowd of about 40,000, “giving us the opportunity to celebrate as one family.”

It was a markedly different Independence Day message from Mr. Mugabe, who has held onto power for three decades by jailing and beating political opponents, but now needs to convince the world he can work with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in order to secure desperately needed development aid.

The coalition partners have pledged to work together to confront crippling poverty, collapsed utilities and chronic shortages of food and basic goods. But their union has gotten off to a rocky start, with Tsvangirai supporters still jailed and thugs from Mr. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party continuing to seize land from white farmers.

Mr. Mugabe has been Zimbabwe’s president since the country’s April 18, 1980, independence from Britain, and has used past Independence Day events to flaunt his party’s stranglehold on power.

The state broadcaster prefaced this year’s ceremony, however, with an interview with a top Tsvangirai aide - and with admonitions to Zimbabweans to leave their party T-shirts at home.

“I call on all Zimbabweans to dedicate themselves on this sacred day to national unity and reconciliation,” the 85-year-old Mr. Mugabe told the crowd.

“We need to create an environment of tolerance,” he said. “It also means an end to these instances of violence that have caused untold harm to individuals and communities.”

Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has been blamed on a land redistribution campaign that Mr. Mugabe began in 2000. Mr. Mugabe, however, blames Western sanctions for his country’s woes.

On Saturday, he repeated calls for sanctions to be dropped. The U.S. and other major Western donors have kept targeted sanctions - chiefly travel and banking bans on Mr. Mugabe and his top aides - and have yet to respond to the unity government’s pleas for financial help.

In a statement Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised reform efforts so far, and encouraged Zimbabwe’s government “to continue those important steps as it works for a more promising future for Zimbabwe.”

The State Department has lifted a travel advisory that warned Americans against visiting Zimbabwe, but cautioned that the political situation in the African nation remains unpredictable and could quickly deteriorate.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti, the top Tsvangirai aide interviewed Saturday on state TV, acknowledged “toxic issues” divided members of the coalition government. But he was upbeat.

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