U.S. Envoy to Africa Urges Tougher Stance on Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The top American envoy for Africa urged the international community yesterday to take a tougher stance against Zimbabwe's longtime leader, Robert Mugabe.

Jendayi Frazer's comments came as Zimbabwe's electoral commission said it was getting closer to releasing the results of the presidential vote one month after the election.

Ms. Frazer said the most immediate priority was to halt increasing violence against opposition supporters, an apparent attempt to intimidate people ahead of a possible election runoff.

"There's no neutrality when people are being beaten," Ms. Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said in an interview with the Associated Press in Zambia.

"When a government deploys its military, and its police, and its intelligence operatives ... then the international community has a responsibility to step in and to try to stop that government from beating its own population," she added.

She left open the possibility of supporting a national unity government — an idea floated last week in a state-owned Zimbabwean newspaper — but said the opposition should lead it.