Indicted President of Sudan Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Zimbabwe on Saturday evening to meet with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. President al-Bashir was summoned by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and the current Prime Minister, told reporters in Netherlands he and MDC officials were not informed of the Sudanese leader to arrive in Zimbabwe.
This visit was part of the two-day summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Pres. Mugabe was hosting in the town of Victoria Falls. The reasoning for this meeting, created by Pres. Mugabe, is to receive investment, loans, money and whatever else Zimbabwe can receive from other nations. According to the Zimbabwe Government, leaders from nineteen nations will attend this conference.
Under ICC law any nation that is a part of this court is under legal obligation to arrest the arraigned Sudanese leader however, Zimbabwe has not signed on to the world’s first war crimes tribunal.
During the reign of Pres. al-Bashir, more than 300,000 people have died in the violent fighting and more than 2.6 million Sudanese have been displaced from their homes during this six-year battle according to the United Nations however, spokespersons for the Sudanese government have stated the statistics have been exaggerated.
PM Tsvangirai has left Zimbabwe for a three-week tour to visit U.S. and European officials to end isolation and try to rebuild talks with former investors of the impoverished nations. The Zimbabwean Prime Minister will also have a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.
In a radio address, Pres. Mugabe stated, “Let us make Africa a continent of opportunity for all its peoples by eliminating conflict. We can no longer be observers and reporters.”
The monthly inflation rate in Zimbabwe is now at fifteen billion percent and an annual rate of five-hundred and sixteen quintillion percent. Every week, prices are doubling for everything including bread, gasoline, milk, et cetera. In September of 2008, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced a $1,000 note, which is ten trillion dollars in the old value. And these dramatic rates of inflation are just the beginning.
As of February 2nd, 2009 the Zimbabwe Government redenominated the Zimbabwe Dollar at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD.
($1CAD = $331ZWD)
