United Snakes Calls For Continuing Destabilization Efforts Against Zimbabwe

[XXPANTHAXX]

US: Keep pressure on Mugabe

Roy Bennett was arrested on the same day the unity governmnet was
created - February 13

The United States has urged the international community to increase
pressure on Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, to implement a
power-sharing agreement.

Washington's call came just hours after Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime
minister, declared on Friday that he had suspended cabinet meetings
following the detention of one of his aides on terrorism charges.

Ian Kelly, a US state department spokesman, told reporters: "We
understand the frustration of the opposition in the lack of progress.
Everybody needs to continue to put pressure on Mr Mugabe to implement
the agreement.

"This is an agreement that Mr Mugabe himself signed, and he hasn't taken
the concrete steps to show a commitment to democratic reform and opening
up his political system."

'Outstanding issues'

Tvsangirai, who is in a unity government formed in February after a
disputed election, said his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would
disengage from the ruling Zanu-PF until "all outstanding issues are
fulfilled".

"Until confidence has been restored, we can't continue to pretend that
everything is well," Tsvangirai said, referring to a trial scheduled to
begin on Monday against Roy Bennett, his nominee for the post of deputy
agriculture minister.

Bennet has been charged with weapons violations and the charges are
linked to long-discredited allegations that the MDC planned to overthrow
Mugabe's government.

He had been sent back to prison but was freed on Friday pending Monday's
trial.

Officials from the MDC said the decision to return him to prison was a
serious attack on the credibility of the inclusive government.

The MDC treasurer, Bennett was originally arrested on February 13 - the
same day the unity government was sworn in.

He was then freed on bail in March 2009.

Haru Mutasa, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital,
reported:

"Tsvangirai will not participate in cabinet meetings. This means that
Zanu-PF and President Robert Mubage can not effectively push forward any
policies, policies to do with land and the economy.

Warning

"The bad side for Zimbabwe is that the country is at a standstill, which
is what analysts say the prime minister is trying to achieve - to make
this country ungovernable so that maybe the president will be forced to
meet him and address these outstanding issues."

Ian Khama, the president of neighbouring Botswana and a rare critic of
Mugabe in southern Africa, warned that the pact was in danger of
collapsing if the parties failed to agree on key issues.

"It is limping along and there is a real danger that the whole thing
could collapse," he told the AFP news agency in Gaborone.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed the unity government in February nearly a
year after disputed polls and major international sanctions plunged
Zimbabwe into deeper economic and political chaos.

Bennett, a white former coffee farmer whose land was expropriated under
Mugabe's land reforms, was arrested on his return from South Africa
where he had fled after being implicated in an alleged plot to kill the
president.