South Africa and Australia clashed yesterday over barring Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe, from a Commonwealth summit. The row threatens to split the group along racial lines.
Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, angered Pretoria by announcing that Mugabe would not be invited to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Nigeria in December because Zimbabwe’s record on human rights had not improved.
In a thinly veiled appeal for solidarity among African members, South Africa accused Howard of megaphone diplomacy and called on the Commonwealth to reverse the ban.
The row flared as Zimbabwe intensified a crackdown on the Daily News, the country’s only independent daily newspaper and one of the regime’s strongest critics. Police raided the newspaper’s office in Harare and seized equipment, despite apparently having no warrant to do so.
Gugulethu Moyo, the newspaper’s legal adviser, said: ”This is just brute force. The whole thing is horrendous, it’s purely illegal.”
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth’s decision-making councils after the government rigged the presidential election in March last year, which Mugabe won.
South Africa wants the 18-month-old suspension lifted in time for December’s summit in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, arguing that the isolation has failed to solve Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems.
Howard seemed to surprise the South African government when he said that Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth’s secretary general, and Nigeria’s President, Olusegun Obasanjo, had assured him that Mugabe would be barred.
He described the lack of progress in Zimbabwe as a ”veritable tragedy” and said: ”Its people are starving. Their choice of government has been denied to them.
”Their economy is in ruins. In these circumstances it would be a travesty if Zimbabwe were to be represented at the Abuja meeting. I welcome the decision that has been taken by Nigeria not to extend an invitation to President Mugabe.”
The Zimbabwean president has blamed soaring inflation, food shortages and opposition to his 23-year rule on attempts by Britain, the former colonial power, to sabotage his policy of seizing land from white farmers and giving it to landless black citizens.
South Africa favours engaging Harare through quiet diplomacy, rather than punishing it through sanctions.
Bheki Khumalo, a spokesperson for South Africa’s President, Thabo Mbeki, told Australian radio that Pretoria was ”very disappointed” with Howard’s statements.
”We don’t think that using megaphone diplomacy will work and we hope that the Australians, in particular the Australian government, will understand this,” he said.
Later he told reporters in South Africa: ”If President Mugabe does not attend the meeting, it will be because he has not been invited by the Nigerian president, not because of the actions of John Howard.”
Undeterred, the Australian prime minister repeated his statements to the Parliament in Canberra. Australia has become more critical of Zimbabwe as Britain has cooled its rhetoric against Mugabe to stop him from playing the colonial card.
Nigeria shares South Africa’s distaste for punishing another African government and there was no public confirmation from Abuja to match Howard’s announcement.
With two Commonwealth heavyweights pulling in opposite directions, Nigeria, which has the final say over who to invite, faces a dilemma. One diplomat predicted that it was likely to bar Mugabe.
”It’s not an easy decision for them but they know that, according to the rule, he should not be invited,” he said.
Yesterday’s raid on the Daily News was not unexpected, but staff were shocked when riot police in two lorries sealed off the road in front of their office and seized equipment. Two freelance photographers outside the office were detained for questioning.
The paper was forcibly shut last week on the grounds of operating illegally because it has not registered with a state-appointed media commission.
Under a strict new media law, which critics say is unconstitutional, all news organisations must register with the commission, something the Daily News had refused to do until this week. But the Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, said its application was incomplete. — Guardian Unlimited Â