The South African Human Rights Commission has called on the SA government to play an active role in ending Zimbabwe's human rights abuses. Yesterday the commission said it had appealed to the Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo for the SA government to end its silence on human rights violations in Zimbabwe. According to SAHRC chairperson Barney Pitjana, this follows reports of police brutality against peaceful demonstrators, assaults on union leaders responsible for organising public protests against government policy, arbitrary restrictions and banning of public protests.

The latest incident was on January 26, where riot police broke up a march by lawyers and human rights activists who wanted to petition Parliament over the detention and torture of Mark Chavunduka, Ray Choto and Clive Wilson, "The Standard" newspaper journalists in Zimbabwe.

Pityana said that while he understood the need for co-orperation between SA and Zimbabwe, it was important that such a relationship be based on international human rights standards.

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