HARARE, Zimbabwe — With the death toll from Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic over 1,100 and the country in shambles, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu said Wednesday that it was time to threaten its longtime president with removal by force.
The comments came as the government of President Robert Mugabe brought a missing Zimbabwean human-rights activist to court Wednesday, accusing her and at least six others of plotting to overthrow him. Activist Jestina Mukoko disappeared Dec. 3 after protests against the country’s deepening economic and health crises.
Charging Mukoko, the respected head of a group known as the Zimbabwe Peace Project, in a plot already widely dismissed as a fabrication is seen as a sign that Mugabe, 84, is not prepared to back down.
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Tutu said he was ashamed of his country, South Africa, for its handling of the issue.
“We have betrayed our legacy. How much more suffering is going to make us say, ‘No, we have given Mr. Mugabe enough time,’ ” said Tutu, retired archbishop of Cape Town who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki mediated the power-sharing deal between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
