U.S. calls jailing of Zimbabwe activists troubling

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said it was troubling that 18 opposition activists in Zimbabwe were sent back to jail and repeated on Tuesday that no major aid would go to the country until there were firm signs of reform.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood questioned the pace of reform since February when veteran President Robert Mugabe formed a unity government with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

"These ... 18 leading Zimbabwean activists ordered back to jail is troubling," Wood told reporters. "This is just another example of my concern about the lack of democracy, democratic processes in Zimbabwe," he added.

"We've got a lot of concerns about what's going on there. And so, up until we see changes, our position is going to remain," he said, referring to any major U.S. aid kicking in.

The activists, who face charges of terrorism, were ordered back to prison by a Zimbabwean court in a move that will spark new tensions in a government formed after months of bickering and a crackdown by Mugabe's forces on the opposition.

The activists say they were abducted by state security agents from their homes last year and tortured to force them to confess to planning to remove Mugabe from power.

The Obama administration has said repeatedly no significant aid can flow to Zimbabwe until the government has implemented a string of economic, political and democratic reforms.

Zimbabwe's finance minister, an ally of Tsvangirai, met senior U.S. diplomats when he was in Washington at the end of last month to explain what reforms were planned.