US threatens sanctions over Zimbabwe abuses

The United States has joined the European Union in threatening economic and other sanctions against Zimbabwe if Robert Mugabe does not move to ensure free and fair presidential elections in March.

Congressman Ed Royce, head of the House of Representatives' Africa Committee, said the United States would "ratchet up the pressure" in the weeks before the 9-10 March election, while the State Department said Washington would oppose debt relief and further loans to Zimbabwe if the lawlessness continued.

Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe's government had to delay consideration of a Bill to restrict the press after MPs on the parliamentary legal affairs committee found most of its provisions to be unconstitutional.

The Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament that a number of amendments would be considered before the media Bill returned to parliament next week.

The Bill, which would ban foreign correspondents from operating in Zimbabwe and make it virtually impossible for Zimbabwean journalists to criticise the President or his ministers, has been condemned by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, as "resonant of dictatorship".

Amendments to the Bill to be considered include letting foreign correspondents into the country for "specific events", Mr Chinamasa said.

The reprieve is of little comfort to members of the independent media in Zimbabwe. The Justice Minister said he had consulted media organisations on amendments but the four main journalists' associations in Zimbabwe said they had not been consulted.

Sources close to the legal committee, which is composed of one opposition and two ruling-party MPs, said the Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, had tried to block discussion of amendments.

The legal committee acts in an advisory capacity. Its recommendations can be overruled by Zanu-PF, the ruling party, which holds a 34-seat majority in parliament.

A source close to the committee said that it found the Bill "to be so devoid of any legal reasoning that it dismissed it as a mere collection of political ambitions by Moyo to stifle the media".

The source said: "What we expect at most are cosmetic changes to the Bill, but its fundamentals will remain intact. If Moyo gets his way, then maybe the Bill might not even be amended but might just be worded differently."

The Bill would put Zimbabwean journalists under a system of one-year licences. It prescribes heavy jail terms for journalists writing articles deemed likely to engender hostility towards Mr Mugabe.

In an interview with state-run Zambian Television, Mr Chinamasa said: "No journalist will practise in Zimbabwe without being accredited, whether local or foreign. Foreign journalists will be allowed to cover specific events, however, for a limited period. Otherwise they must employ local journalists."

The US warning was being delivered in person yesterday by Lorne Craner, the Assistant Secretary for Democracy and Human Rights, who is in Harare for talks with Zimbabwean government officials.

Last month the US Congress approved – and President George Bush signed – the Zimbabwe Democracy Act, which empowers the administration to block funds held in the US by the Zimbabwean president and his senior colleagues.

The independent Daily News, a fierce critic of Mr Mugabe, yesterday said that ruling-party activists had burnt copies of the newspaper on Monday to prevent them being distributed.

Meanwhile, a report in Zimbabwe's independently-owned Financial Gazette said the army had placed 10,000 soldiers on leave and deployed them throughout the country to campaign for Mr Mugabe's re-election. The newspaper said the soldiers would be paid an extra Z$10,000 (£125) a month each for their work in the presidential election campaign.

The alleged troop deployments come after a tough statement from the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Vitalis Zvinavashe, last week, warning Zimbabweans that the army would not accept a president who had not participated in Zimbabwe's 1970s independence war.