British newspapers said on Tuesday that President Robert Mugabe had subjected Prime Minister Tony Blair to a humiliating ambush after ”hijacking” the UN Earth Summit in Johannesburg to blame Britain for Zimbabwe’s crisis.
Tensions between Zimbabwe and Britain, its former colonial ruler, overshadowed Monday’s summit negotiations on the environment, papers said.
Mugabe walked out when Blair addressed some 100 heads of state and government gathered in Johannesburg for deliberations on alleviating extreme poverty and protecting the environment.
In his own address, Mugabe told Blair to ”keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe.”
Meanwhile, Namibia’s President Sam Nujoma called for an end to sanctions against Zimbabwe and accused the West, particularly Britain, of mounting a campaign against the southern African state.
Britain’s right-wing Daily Mail said the attacks showed ”the so-called international community at its poisonous worst”.
The paper, whose front page headline was ”Ambushed”, added: ”It is difficult to imagine an uglier display of hypocrisy or a worse advertisement for the investment Africa so desperately needs.”
Trevor Kavanagh, the political editor of the Sun, Britain’s biggest selling daily tabloid, said: ”The surprise was not that he (Mugabe) delivered such a chilling message of hate. The real shock was the fervent applause for his inflammatory outburst.
”It was a worrying spectacle at the Earth Summit … staged to end the sort of poverty over which Mugabe presides.”
The right-of-centre Daily Telegraph broadsheet said Blair was ”stitched up”, and argued that he should have made a direct response to Mugabe rather than choosing to ”avoid an ugly wrangle off the main agenda”.
”Tactically, we suffered a defeat in Johannesburg yesterday which in the longer run may prove very damaging to Africa”, the paper said, adding that the situation in Zimbabwe was proving a ”huge crisis for human rights”.
Britain has been at the forefront of EU and Commonwealth sanctions –including a travel ban on dozens of key officials — aimed at isolating Mugabe’s government.
Mugabe is under fire in the West for his seizure of white farmers’ land for blacks when six million people — about half the population — are facing the threat of starvation.
His land policy, which recently saw more than 300 white farmers arrested for refusing to leave their land, is seen as having hurt agriculture and contributed to the food crisis. – Sapa-AFP