April 25, 2008
No. 99
The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement condemning the mounting violence and intimidation in post-electoral Zimbabwe:
"Canada is alarmed by reports that Zimbabwean state security services have raided offices of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a non-governmental organization. Such acts demonstrate an ever-increasing disregard for democracy on the part of the Government of Zimbabwe.
"We are deeply concerned by the conduct of security and paramilitary forces in the ongoing intimidation and persecution of opposition forces, and those presumed to support the opposition. African leaders played a key role in defusing Kenya's crisis, and we expect the same leadership on Zimbabwe. We welcome the substantive efforts of regional leaders to address the troubling and destabilizing events in Zimbabwe, and urge leaders of the continent to support these efforts vigorously.
"I stand by my assertion that the people of Africa have struggled too long and too hard to have their rights compromised and their systems distorted by those who would seek to play the politics of power with the institutions of democracy."
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