Robert Mugabe his defeat, referring to them as "enemies of Zimbabwe". The June 2000 parliamentary elections were Zimbabwe's most important since 1980. Sixteen parties took part, although the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)—led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai—was particularly successful. During the election campaign, MDC activists were regularly harassed and in some cases killed. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum documented 27 murders, 27 rapes, 2466 assaults, and 617 abductions, with 10,000 people displaced by violence; the majority, although not all, of these actions were carried out by ZANU-PF supporters. Observers from the European Union (EU) ruled that the election was neither free
Robert Mugabe In 2004, the EU imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on Mugabe. It extended these sanctions in 2008, with the US government introducing further sanctions this same year. The US and UK introduced a resolution at the UN Security Council calling for an arms embargo of Zimbabwe alongside an asset freeze and travel ban of Mugabe and other government figures; it was vetoed by Russia and China. In 2009, the SADC demanded that Western states lift their targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his government. ZANU-PF presented the sanctions as a form of Western neo-colonialism and blamed the West for