Britain’s silence is deafening when whites are slaughtered by Mugabe’s thugs, while a few beatings administered to black political rivals incites indignation. <p>LONDON (AFP) – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is responsible for the beatings of opposition leaders because he has made it clear it is a "deliberate act of policy," Britain charged Saturday. </p><div class=”lrec”>"One can only hold him responsible," Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in an interview recorded for BBC television on Sunday when asked if she held him personally responsible for the violence.</div><p>"He is in charge of the government," Beckett said on BBC1’s Politics Show, according to a transcript of the interview distributed at the weekend.</p><p>"He has made it very clear that this is a deliberate act of policy on the part of the government of Zimbabwe and that he is indifferent to the real, I think horror, that is felt right across the international community," she said.</p><p>Britain was "pressing very hard" for action to be taken in the UN Human Rights Council, Beckett said.</p><p>The council last year replaced the UN Commission on Human Rights, which was discredited due to the dominant presence of countries with poor human rights records, such as China, and riven by behind-the-scenes bargaining.</p><p>"This is one of its first major tests and there’s general agreement that that is the right place to call for action against the government of Robert Mugabe," she said.</p><p><a href=”http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070317/wl_uk_afp/zimbabwepolitics;_ylt=Avxngb13xkvfKlVWu2JD6Ad0bBAF" target=”_blank”>original article</a></p>