South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa vows strong support for Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa

On a visit to Zimbabwe, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa voiced his strong support of Zimbabwe's counterpart President Emmerson Mnangagwa, repeating calls for an end to Western sanctions and urging the international community to assist the once-prosperous country. He described the sanctions against Emmerson Mnangagwa and dozens of other top Zimbabwean officials as "unfair" and "unjust." He promised South Africa will assist Zimbabwe's economic recovery "within our means."

Cyril Ramaphosa's comments came as Human Rights Watch issued a report urging him and other southern African leaders to push Zimbabwe's president "to put an end to security force abuses."

Zimbabwe's rights record has been under the international spotlight since the military opened fire on protesters twice. In August the military fired on post-election protesters, killing six people, including some bystanders. A government inquest later ruled that the military had used excessive force.

The military again opened fire in January to put down anti-government protests and at least 12 people were killed, according to human rights groups. After the street protests were quelled, the military carried out a series of raids on residential areas across the country and there were reports of rapes, abductions and arrests of more than 1,000 people.

Mnangagwa has defended the military interventions and said the January unrest had been encouraged by Western countries that have kept decades-old sanctions against scores of top officials. The U.S. last week extended the targeted sanctions, as hopes fade that Mnangagwa would fulfill his promises of reform after taking over from Robert Mugabe in 2017.

Human Rights Watch on March 12 said that security forces "used excessive lethal force" to put down the protests, based on interviews that it conducted with 45 "victims of abuses."

The international human rights watchdog said it talked to families of people killed, witnesses, activists, medical personnel, lawyers and police officers for its report. The Zimbabwe government has repeatedly dismissed the reports of rape as fabricated, while attributing the other abuses to "fake soldiers," men masquerading as army troops in stolen uniforms.

With inputs from agencies.