Press Office

Aired: Friday, 16 March, 2007 14:9
Please credit Sky News when using any of the quotes from the transcript below.

Sky News Presenter Anna Jones – We are going to cross live now to Zimbabwe to get the latest on the condition of the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC party there who was arrested along with several colleagues on Sunday after a rally and then appeared in court with a fractured scull.  Well Morgan Tsvangirai himself is on the line now for us from Zimbabwe.  Morgan Tsvangirai can you tell us what your condition is like now?

Morgan Tsvangirai – My condition has improved significantly, I have been discharged this morning, I am at home, of course slightly dazed but I thank goodness that I have recovered.

AJ – Tell us what happened to you?

MT – What happened is that we were supposed to reschedule the meeting, a prayer meeting on Sunday….for the Zimbabwe banner.  My colleagues were arrested and I had gone there to find out what the condition was.  Apparently there were already in police custody and they were being beaten and when I arrived at the police station I was also then asked to join the others and a lot of these so called police officers just laid into me.  I was also terribly brutalised, almost to the extent of losing consciousness.

AJ – Robert Mugabe has said today that it was your party, the Movement for Democratic Change that triggered the violence.  He is saying that you started it.  What’s your response to that?

MT – That is outrageous, how can the people who have been arrested cause the violence, people were arrested, they didn’t resist arrest, they were at the police station, they were being brutalised and this kind of statement just explains the heartless nature of the man we are dealing with.

AJ – What do you want the international community to do now?

MT – Well Zimbabwe has been in this crisis for the last seven years.  Apparently there have been moments where this has been put on the international radar.  I believe that the state of Zimbabwe today requires that this issue must be resolved peacefully and we have committed ourselves over the last seven and a half years to end peacefully the resolution of this crisis.  Caused in the main by the governance of the Mugabe regime.

AJ – Now we do know that there is a call from Britain, from America to extend sanctions, but there is an argument that says that sanctions mean that civilians in Zimbabwe with suffer more.  How do you feel about it?

MT – Well there is no economic sanctions regimes in this government, what is there is the limited targeted sanctions for travel outside Zimbabwe into Europe and America.  That was a mild demonstration of an incentive for good behaviour under the power of this regime.  The people are not affected whether President Mugabe is travelling to Europe or not so there are no sanctions so we cannot be affected by so called sanctions.

AJ – But tougher economic sanctions might affect the people, it maybe them that lose out.

 

MT – No we are not advocating for any favour economic sanctions.  As I say there are no economic sanctions in this regime.  The problem in this country is nothing to do with sanctions or so called sanctions, the problem is this government, the problem is economic mismanagement, corruption.  This government is in a state of siege because it cannot respond to the economic needs of Zimbabwe. 

AJ – What do you now expect now to happen in your case, do you expect the government to take it further?

MT – In my case there is no case to answer.  I went to the police station and I was brutalised.  So I have not been charged over any offence so I do not expect anything to be followed after that.

AJ – So what do you want to do next?

 

MT – Well the people of Zimbabwe are crying out for a resolution of this national crisis and it is what the MDC is committed to, to mobilise people of this regime to understand that they cannot continue ignore the level of economic deprivation it has caused in this country.  People are crying out for food, people are crying out for jobs, people are crying out for basic economic sustenance.  And that’s what we need and we will continue on that fight.

AJ – How much support do you think you have from neighbouring African countries, do you feel that they are doing enough to support the cause of the opposition in Zimbabwe?

MT – Well the kind of support that we receive for the region is varied.  There are those who understand the nature of the crisis, there are those who have chosen to ignore the crisis on the pretext that this was the next internally induced crisis and yet this is an internally induced self inflicted crisis by Mugabe himself.  Now, what we expect people to do is basically to commit themselves to ensure that all the other countries commit themselves to the basic principles around which…is formed.  Apparently there is not a united voice on this, even after this brutal attack there is not a united voice on what the country is going through.

 

AJ – Britain has said that is going to demand that the human rights council of the United Nations sends a team of investigators to Zimbabwe to try and gather evidence on the ground about the brutality of Robert Mugabe regime.  What’s your response to that?  Presumably you welcome that?

MT – We welcome any international effort and if the nature of this regime, which creates a façade of a functional democracy where it is actually a deep-rooted, militarised, criminal state. 

AJ – Do you think it will achieve anything though?

MT – Any international effort visiting this regime combined with national effort is good.

AJ – Some people are saying that the fact that the British government is prepared to put diplomacy on the line and put emphasis on a team going in shows that it feels that patience on the ground in Zimbabwe is wearing thin with the government.  Clearly you are from the opposition, you would say that was the case but can you give an idea to us about how you feel the mood has changed in Zimbabwe?

MT – There has been a significant change in the mood of the country because our experience is that no sector of this economy has been spared.  The poor are getting much poorer; it is about daily trouble for survival.  The business community is collapsing.  I don’t even know of any sector that can say they are confident in the manner in which the way the government is dealing with the problems in Zimbabwe.  So I think that there is a convergence across the political divide that Mugabe is the stumbling block to any progress that Mugabe has mismanaged the economy that what is needed is a solution.

AJ – I want to go back to your own condition now, you told us that you were a lot better earlier, that you are out of hospital, is there any permanent damage caused by the attack, as you call it on you on Sunday?

The line to Zimbabwe is lost.