LONDON (AFP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged Wednesday that Britain would promote proposals for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe.
A Chinese ship loaded with arms intended for Zimbabwe was turned back from the South African port of Durban last week and is reportedly now heading for Angola.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has come under increasing international pressure as the March 29 presidential poll results have yet to be revealed, amid reports of election-linked violence.
During his weekly questions session in parliament's lower House of Commons, Brown was asked by a backbench lawmaker to send a clear message to Mugabe "to stop brutalising legitimate opposition, to listen to the democratic will of that country and to go".
Brown replied: "A message should be sent from the whole of the UK that what is happening in Zimbabwe, failing to announce an election result, trying to rig an election result, is completely unacceptable.
"I call on the whole world to express its view that this is completely unacceptable to the whole of the international community.
"Because of what has happened in South Africa, where there is an arms shipment trying to get to Zimbabwe, we will promote proposals for an embargo on all arms to Zimbabwe.
"At the same time we ask all the African Union observers and the international observers to make their views known about the unfairness of this election."
The ship, the An Yue Jiang, was carrying three million rounds of assault rifle ammunition, 3,000 mortar rounds and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, according to its inventory published by a South African newspaper.
The ship was forced to abandon plans to offload the arms in Durban after activists won a court case which prevented it from transporting the load overland to the border with landlocked Zimbabwe.
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