/ 15 October 2003

Commonwealth urges national dialogue in Zimbabwe

If Zimbabwe wants to end its exclusion from the Commonwealth nations’ decision-making councils, it must start by engaging in dialogue with political opponents, the group’s secretary-general said on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the councils of the 54-nation group of Britain and its former colonies after President Robert Mugabe’s government was accused of intimidation and vote rigging in the March 2002 presidential elections.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon, who is meeting with African leaders ahead of a December summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, listed five requirements for Zimbabwe to return to the fold.

They included repealing or amending legislation restricting free speech; ending harassment of political opposition and civil society groups; addressing recommendations made by Commonwealth election observers; and working with the Commonwealth and United Nations on land reform.

But before anything else could happen, McKinnon said there must be ”substantial dialogue” between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic change.

Commonwealth members are divided over the exclusion of Zimbabwe, which has not been invited to the December summit.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been among those urging tougher measures against Mugabe, whom he has called an ”unelected despot.” South Africa has pressed for more diplomatic steps.

”The role of the Commonwealth is always to help and assist its member countries,” McKinnon told journalists in Johannesburg. ”When a country is suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth, the aim is never to punish that country or its people, but to help it return to a democratic order.”

Zimbabwe is in the throes of political and economic crisis, with 70% unemployment and acute shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

A state programme to seize thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks has crippled the agriculture-based economy.

Mugabe’s government has also stepped up its crackdown on dissent, charging opposition leaders with treason and shutting down the country’s only independent daily newspaper. – Sapa