Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema jetted into the Zimbabwean capital on Tuesday to a red-carpet welcome at the start of an official visit, state television reported.
The president of the oil-rich Central African country was embraced warmly by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as he stepped off his plane, television footage showed. He was given a 21-gun salute and inspected a guard of honour.
A band played the two countries’ national anthems for thousands of cheering supporters of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, who were bussed into Harare International Airport to welcome the visiting leader.
Obiang is due to open Harare’s annual agricultural show on Friday. The show — designed to display the country’s agricultural commodities and livestock — is a key event on the national calendar.
But Zimbabwe’s agricultural production, once the envy of most countries in the region, has been hard-hit by a controversial land-reform programme begun seven years ago.
Organisers dubbed the show’s ambitious theme Our Task to Feed the Nation: Time for Innovation. It is being held only weeks after local officials admitted this year’s maize yield would be the worst since 2000.
The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that up to four million Zimbabweans are likely to need food aid by next March.
Ties between Harare and Malabo, which used to be low-key, have strengthened since the Zimbabwean government captured a planeload of alleged mercenaries in 2004 said to be on their way to topple Obiang’s government.
All of the alleged coup plotters have since been released except for Briton Simon Mann, who is in the process of appealing his deportation to Equatorial Guinea to face trial for treason.
Earlier this year, Mugabe said Malabo was providing his fuel-starved country with oil at what he described as favourable terms. — Sapa-dpa