The United States warned Friday it would consider new sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government if a power-sharing deal collapses. Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, said on a visit to Japan that she was not optimistic that Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai would break a deadlock in talks. “If it doesn't work then we are going to continue the pressure that we've put on the government. We will look at new sanctions against President Mugabe and his regime,” Frazer told a group of reporters in Tokyo. “Right now we're not so optimistic. It doesn't look very good for power-sharing,” she said. Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, is on a visit to Japan and China for talks on African hotspots and cooperation on aid to the continent. European Union foreign ministers at a meeting Monday in Luxembourg also warned of fresh sanctions unless Mugabe respected the power-sharing deal. Former South African leader Thabo Mbeki was brokering talks to salvage the month-old pact, under which the 84-year-old Mugabe would remain president and his rival would take the new post of prime minister. Tsvangirai has threatened to pull out of the agreement after Mugabe last weekend announced he would award key ministries to his own party. “The actions of President Mugabe are not consistent with any notion of power-sharing,” Frazer said. “We will have to see whether former president Mbeki will be able to get President Mugabe to agree to what he had agreed to, which was to truly share power,” she said. But Frazer said that African leaders had the biggest role to play in persuading Mugabe to share power with his rival. “Ultimately Mugabe rests and relies on support from his neighbours and I think that they have to become stronger and hold him to account,” she said. “The 21 heads of state that witnessed” the signing of the power-sharing agreement, “they should be the ones calling for him to honor the commitments,” she said. Frazer insisted that further sanctions would not hurt the people of Zimbabwe, where inflation is running at 231 million percent and 80 percent of the population lives in poverty. “We don't believe that our sanctions will impact on people's lives. They will impact on the stealing of the government officials,” she said. She noted that the United States delivers food and health assistance to Zimbabwe. Existing US sanctions include bans on travel and trade with government leaders.
