Britain urges world to declare Mugabe illegitimate

By Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain urged world leaders on Monday to declare Robert Mugabe's regime illegitimate and to impose a broader package of sanctions on the Zimbabwean president's inner circle.

He also called for additional financial and travel sanctions on members of Mugabe's government.

"The international community must send a powerful and united message: that we will not recognize the fraudulent election rigging and violence and intimidation of a criminal and discredited cabal," Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament.

"The world is of one view: that the status quo cannot continue," he said.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of the June 27 presidential run-off on Sunday because of violence.

Britain's Africa Minister Mark Malloch Brown earlier said the former colonial power backed Tsvangirai's decision and he hoped world leaders would take action against Mugabe.

"Our objectives are to get in every forum possible a recognition that today President Mugabe no longer remains the proper rightful leader of the country," he told reporters.

"I think we can look with reasonable confidence to broad- based action to make sure there's a resolution of this situation," he said.

Malloch Brown said the United Nations Security Council, which meets later on Monday, the European Union and the African Union should consider wider sanctions, including financial and travel sanctions as well as possible action against the foreign studies of children of the members of Mugabe's inner circle.

Sanctions should not impact the poor, however, he added.

If Mugabe insisted on staying on, Malloch Brown said Britain could look at the aid it gave to Zimbabwe and clamp down further on British or European countries doing business with Zimbabwe.

Britain could "broadly cut any kind of economic ties and strip back the political ones to the barest minimum," Malloch Brown added, declining to go further into detail.

Malloch Brown said African countries were increasingly condemning Zimbabwe's leadership and the violence which the opposition says has left 86 people dead and displaced 200,000.

Britain could only do business with a national unity government that reflected "the popular will of the people" and was genuinely committed to reform and change," he said.

"It tests credulity to believe President Mugabe could be part of it or indeed others around him," he said.

(additional reporting by Kate Kelland)