Secretary Rice calls for Mugabe to leave

Calling the elections in Zimbabwe this year a "sham," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that it is "well past time" for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to leave office.

"The fact is that there was a sham election," said Secretary Rice. "There then has been a sham process of power sharing talks. And now we are seeing not only the political and economic toll that has been taken on the people of Zimbabwe but the toll that has been taken in the humanitarian dimension."

Speaking during a visit to Denmark on Friday, Rice cited the nation's cholera epidemic and health care crisis as evidence of Mugabe's failure as president. On Thursday, the Zimbabwean health minister, David Parirenyatwa, declared the nation's cholera outbreak a "national emergency" and appealed for outside help, the New York Times reported. The epidemic has claimed more than 560 lives, the paper reported.

Cholera is an acute, diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, but without treatment, death can occur within hours.

Nobel laureate South African archbishop Desmond Tutu went further than Rice in his response to the Zimbabwean leader. Tutu said that Mugabe should be forced out of office if he does not leave willingly, according to Voice of America.

Last month, Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and human rights activist Graça Machel were all blocked from entering Zimbabwe, after the government refused to allow them entry for their humanitarian mission.

The government has made it clear they will not cooperate," Annan said at a news conference in Johannesburg after they were blocked. It was the first time that Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been denied entry into a country. He said their purpose was only humanitarian and not to be involved in the political conflict that has engulfed the country.

"It seems obvious to me that leaders of the government are immune to reaching out for help for their own people," Carter said at the press conference.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe's 84-year-old president, has led his country since 1980, and is involved in a bitter power dispute with his chief rival, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who many believe won the disputed presidential election held earlier this year.