U.S. says Mugabe's time is up

By Nelson Banya

HARARE (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday that President Robert Mugabe's departure from office was long overdue and a food crisis and cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe meant it was now vital for the international community to act.

Zimbabwe has declared an emergency and appealed for international help to battle a cholera outbreak that has killed 575 people, with 12,700 reported cases of the disease, according to the United Nations.

"It's well past time for Robert Mugabe to leave," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Copenhagen.

In a further sign of growing international pressure on Zimbabwe, European Union diplomats said the bloc planned more sanctions next week unless progress was made in ending a deadlock over how to implement a power-sharing deal.

Nobel laureate and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Thursday that Mugabe must step down or be removed by force and that he faced indictment for war crimes in The Hague unless he quit.

Rice said the stalled power-sharing talks, a "sham election" earlier this year, economic meltdown and the humanitarian toll from the cholera epidemic required swift action.

"If this is not evidence to the international community that it's time to stand up for what is right I don't know what will be," Rice told a news conference.

"Frankly the nations of the region have to lead it."

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a statement that Zimbabwe's neighbors should know there was "massive international support for any collective effort to bring a real change to Zimbabwe."

South Africa said on Friday that Zimbabwe's call for international help was encouraging. "We think that that's a major breakthrough," government spokesman Themba Maseko said.

Zimbabwe's neighbors in the 15-nation Southern African Development Community have so far failed to persuade Mugabe and the opposition to form a unity government.

But, faced with Zimbabwe's worsening economic collapse and the humanitarian crisis spilling over into their own countries, they may now be forced to take a stronger stand against the veteran Zimbabwean leader.

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Zimbabwe, isolated by Western countries under Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian rule, has the highest rate of inflation seen in modern times -- officially 231 million percent, but prices are actually doubling every 24 hours.

Basic foods are scarce and the currency is worthless and often unavailable in banks.