Zimbabwe welcomed British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s resignation on Thursday, describing his departure as ”good riddance”.
Blair was showered with praise and brickbats on Thursday as he announced his 10 years in power would end on June 27, but even his opponents conceded he is a ”formidable” politician.
However, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga, said: ”He was the worst thing that ever happened to Africa. We hope that the children of Iraq and Afghanistan he [Blair] is killing every day will haunt him for the rest of his life.”
The ailing Southern African state’s ageing ruler Robert Mugabe was a fierce foe of Blair, whom he has described as a dictator and an enemy of Zimbabwe. The veteran leader has said that Harare’s diplomatic impasse with former colonial ruler Britain could end after Blair, whom he once famously urged to keep his ”little pink nose” out of Zimbabwe’s affairs, steps down.
”We hope he has learnt from his mistakes if he is going to take any ambassadorial role in Africa,” said Matonga of Blair. ”We hope Gordon Brown will have a different approach [towards Zimbabwe], a more humane approach to things than Tony Blair.”
But he nevertheless wished Blair ”the best in his endeavours”.
Zimbabwe’s relations with Britain, from which it gained independence in 1980, have nosedived after Harare started seizing white-owned farms seven years ago. Many were owned by white Zimbabweans who held British citizenship.
Praise and condemnation
In the United Kingdom, Blair was praised for his role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, but condemned for taking Britain into a failed war in Iraq, while his domestic policies drew mixed feelings from both inside and outside his Labour Party.
Blair has been ”a formidable opponent”, acknowledged William Hague, former Conservative party leader and current foreign affairs spokesperson for the party.
Blair is ”really the most dangerous opponent the Conservative party has ever had partly because of his ability to persuade people that he is really, secretly a Conservative even though he is leader of the Labour party”, Hague told BBC television.
Blair, who transformed his party from its Marxist roots into a centrist, pro-business force, led New Labour to the first of three unprecedented straight election victories in 1997, dethroning the Conservatives as the dominant party. Such policies have proved successful with voters, but alienated traditional Labour members who complain he has forgotten the poor.
His predecessor as Labour Party chief, Neil Kinnock, said Blair deserved praise as a ”quite extraordinary leader of our country”.
”The one word that has to be associated with Tony is ‘winner’,” not just because of his electoral success, ”but also a winner because of his utter insistence and his endurance in Northern Ireland,” he told BBC radio.
Historic achievement
Blair presided over a historic ceremony in Belfast on Tuesday where former Protestant and Catholic rivals launched a power-sharing government, under the 1998 Good Friday agreement that he also helped broker.
But as Blair stands down after 10 years as prime minister and 14 years as Labour leader, Kinnock, a former European transport commissioner, said it was a political tragedy his achievements would be overshadowed by the Iraq war.
”It is one of the major areas of activity of the Blair years that I find most difficult to understand. Not the engagement in war, but the nature of the association with [United States President] George Bush,” he said.
Blair faced protests from anti-war campaigners in his north0east England constituency of Sedgefield where he announced that he would tender his resignation as prime minister and party leader on June 27.
The former Labour lawmaker Tony Benn, whose son Hilary is international development secretary in Blair’s government, praised Blair’s efforts in bringing peace and stability to conflict-riven Northern Ireland. But the veteran left-winger accused Blair of presiding over a ”rich man’s government”.
”The people who have done best in Britain in the last 10 years are the rich. There are 68 billionaires — three times as many there were before. At the bottom, it is harder,” he told BBC radio. ”I think it is not surprising that Mrs [Margaret] Thatcher, when asked her greatest achievement, said New Labour.”
The Labour Party mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, spoke of a bittersweet legacy.
”I think that in the same way that perhaps one of the biggest long-term successes is bringing peace to Ireland, the most catastrophic error is the war in Iraq. It has, in a sense, created a whole new generation of terrorists,” he said.
Commitment to Africa
In Cape Town, British high commissioner Paul Boateng on Thursday praised Blair’s commitment to Africa.
Boateng, a former member of Blair’s Cabinet, said the prime minister’s commitment to Africa was of an outstanding nature and had been of huge historical significance.
”The Africa Commission and all the good that has come about as a result of his leadership, of a process that for the first time gave Africa and Africans a real voice in setting the development agenda, remains a real and enduring legacy.
”His stated intention to continue to play a role in ensuring that Africa remains at the forefront of the global agenda is welcomed. His many friends on the continent wish him well in the next stage of his life,” Boateng said. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa