Threat to block any Mugabe asylum bid
The DA says it would go to court to block any attempt by the government to grant asylum to deposed Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace, according to a report in The Citizen. James Selfe, chair of the DA’s federal executive, said the party had written to President Jacob Zuma and his Foreign Minister to warn that taking in Mugabe would be ‘in contravention of the Refugees Act’.
Selfe said the law defined asylum as refugee status, and excluded anybody who had committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, or acts in contravention of the principles espoused by the UN. He said Mugabe’s record during Zimbabwe’s liberation war and his dictatorial 37-year presidency meant he would not qualify for refugee status.
‘Mr Mugabe’s hands are far from clean and there is clear "reason to believe" that he orchestrated a series of massacres, known as the Gukurahundi, against the Ndebele people in the early 1980s.’
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