About This Report
Crisis without Limits
January 22, 2009

II. Recommendations

To the African Union (AU)

  • Publicly condemn ongoing abuses by the ZANU-PF authorities, including enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and torture and other mistreatment.
  • Ensure that mediation on Zimbabwe is led and staffed by a new team of independent facilitators appointed by the AU, who should in turn set basic principles, specific benchmarks, and timelines for resolving the crisis.
  • In accordance with the AU Charter, suspend the Zimbabwe government from the AU if-within a specific timeframe-it does not implement or meet specific human rights and good governance benchmarks. These should include an end to politically motivated violence, enforced disappearances, torture, and the release of MDC and civil society activists who are being arbitrarily detained.
  • Urge full accountability for the perpetrators of human rights abuses, including prosecutions of all persons responsible in accordance with international due process standards, as well as appropriate remedies for victims of abuses.
  • Call on the Zimbabwean authorities to guarantee and facilitate unfettered access for humanitarian organizations and UN agencies to provide humanitarian assistance to all vulnerable persons.
  • Call on the Zimbabwean authorities to take steps to improve access to the availability of food and farming inputs and make serious efforts to end corruption at all levels of the food importation and distribution process.

To Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

  • Request the involvement of the AU in leading the mediation process and work with the AU in pressing ZANU-PF to end abuses.
  • Ensure that mediation initiatives are led and staffed by a new team of independent facilitators appointed by the AU.
  • Maintain tight controls on SADC funded aid for the humanitarian crisis and implement all aspects of SADC relief efforts through UN agencies or local and international NGOs.

To International Donors (including the US, the UK and other EU members)

·Continue to withhold non-humanitarian development aid to Zimbabwe in the absence of clear progress in promoting respect for human rights, including key human rights reforms; set specific benchmarks and closely monitor progress.

·Maintain targeted travel sanctions and asset freezes against ZANU-PF and its leadership until it meets specific human rights and good governance benchmarks.

·Channel humanitarian assistance through the UN and NGOs and respond generously to UN agency appeals for Zimbabwe, in order to enable agencies responding to the humanitarian crisis to provide adequate levels of food, medical care, and other humanitarian assistance to those in need.

·Demand that programs funded by donor governments are not used by the Zimbabwean authorities for political purposes and that all international aid reaches Zimbabweans in need.

To UN Agencies

  • Actively protest the government's deliberate obstruction of humanitarian programs, including through public representations.
  • Ensure strict accountability for aid provided through official bodies-monitor aid to ensure it reaches those most in need.
  • Through timely and regular reporting, ensure that senior UN officials and donors are kept informed of the humanitarian situation and encouraged to impress upon the government its obligations to comply with human rights standards with respect to the rights to food and health. WFP workers, NGO staff, and local authorities involved in food distribution should re-emphasize the principle of non-discrimination by talking to communities, local leadership, district and provincial authorities, party members and leaders, and any others involved in food relief programs.
  • Work closely with local NGOs and community based organizations to target international aid distribution to those most in need, irrespective of real or suspected political affiliation.

To the UNHCHR

  • Urgently impress upon the government of Zimbabwe its responsibility to assist and protect Zimbabweans in need of urgent humanitarian assistance and the unacceptability of obstructing efforts of the international community to help the population in need.

To the Human Rights Council

  • Call on relevant Special Procedures to investigate the denial of the rights to adequate food and health, including access to medical care, of Zimbabwean citizens by the Zimbabwean authorities and report back to the Human Rights Council.
  • Hold a Special Session on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe.
  • Condemn attacks against human rights defenders and task the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders to investigate attacks against human rights defenders committed since the elections were held in 2008 and present a report to the Human Rights Council.