Zimbabwe’s suspension and ensuing pull-out from the Commonwealth has split Africa, with some peers of embattled President Robert Mugabe accusing the ”white Commonwealth” of bullying and others backing the move.
Mugabe, possibly facing his bleakest hour, severed ties with the club of mainly former British colonies on Sunday after Commonwealth leaders voted at a summit in Nigeria to extend Zimbabwe’s suspension indefinitely.
Zimbabwe was initially suspended over a presidential election in March 2002 marred by vote-rigging and violent political repression that was won by Mugabe, a veteran politician in power since 1980 when his country gained independence from Britain.
The reaction across the continent after Harare’s dramatic weekend pull-out was divided but some of Mugabe’s neighbours — some bearing the brunt of an economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, which is seeing tens of thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across their borders — are accusing the ”white Commonwealth” of forcing its will.
Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, who is also the rotating head of the African Union, said the older Commonwealth members had adopted tactics of ”pressure and punishment”.
”The organisation did not reach this decision by consensus,” he said, adding that they could not understand the situation of those trying to build democracy in states only recently emerging from the rule of ”abject racialist powers”.
Zimbabwe is now virtually a pariah state, threatened with expulsion from the International Monetary Fund, and with Mugabe and his associates barred from visiting Europe and the United States.
Themba Dlamini, the Prime Minister of the tiny South African mountain kingdom of Lesotho, struck a warning note even before the Commonwealth decision was announced.
”It must take into cognisance that Africans have an obligation of deciding their future so the Western world must not use its financial muscle to dictate terms to Africans,” he said.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa also accused rich Commonwealth nations of riding roughshod over the others.
”The Western countries bulldozed the suspension of Zimbabwe partly because of their economic muscle,” he was quoted as saying in the South African press on Tuesday.
Mwanawasa, however, said no Southern African Development Community member would quit the Commonwealth in protest but would ”complain from within to make our grievances known”.
However, according to press reports in South Africa on Tuesday, some African nations including Ghana and Kenya backed Zimbabwe’s suspension.
A pointer to the African divide over Zimbabwe is the fact that a bid by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who advocates a ”soft policy” on Zimbabwe, to unseat Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon was defeated 40-11, meaning that many African countries voted to retain the New Zealander at the Commonwealth helm.
Mbeki and other Southern African leaders had opposed the suspension, arguing that Mugabe should be encouraged to reform by being reinstated.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who hosted the Commonwealth summit, had earlier supported Mugabe in times of trouble.
This time round, he stressed that the door remained open for Zimbabwe to return.
”The measures that we’ve put in place to facilitate the quick return to the Commonwealth remain as relevant as if they had not decided to quit,” he said.
Zimbabwe is only the second country to withdraw from the Commonwealth after Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, pulled South Africa out in 1961 because of criticism of his regime. — Sapa-AFP