African ministers rallied behind Zimbabwe over its controversial land reform programme yesterday and accused Britain of seeking to isolate and vilify its former colony in Europe and the US, diplomatic sources said.
In Lusaka, the ministers named South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia to a committee to support Zimbabwe in future talks with the EU and other parties on land reform, the sources said.
African diplomats said the tough resolution was unanimously adopted early yesterday by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) council of ministers. It will be put to OAU heads of state at their summit meeting today.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, a mob of "war veterans" yesterday freed four white farmers they had been holding at a farm since Friday, one of the released farmers said.
The farm owner, Mr Iain Kay, at his Chipesa Farm, 80 km east of the capital Harare, said the war veterans had "allowed us to leave the farm now after protracted negotiations".
"They said they want to take over the farm. We hope we can come to some kind of agreement when tempers have cooled down," he added. The veterans beat up a farmworker earlier yesterday at the farmhouse where they had been holding and threatening to kill the four farmers. African leaders gathered in Zambia for the final summit of the OAU - the last of 37 annual meetings stretching back to the era of the continent's decolonisation from European masters.
Dozens of presidents and prime ministers will bury the OAU with full honours and assist at the birth of a new African Union, modelled on the lines of strong regional groupings in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
The AU, which in time will have a parliament, central bank and a commission to run it with extensive powers, will hold its first summit next year in South Africa, Africa's economic giant.
The ambitions driving the AU concept far outstrip the material resources available to make the vision work. Its budget must be hugely increased from the pinmoney used to run the 53-member OAU.
"There must be a reversal of the OAU budget because 80 per cent of that budget goes to salaries and only 20 per cent to programmes," the South African Foreign Minister, Ms Nkosa zana Dlamini-Zuma, said.
In parallel with the move to a more solid and institutional body such as the AU, key nations led by South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria have fashioned a wide-ranging "Africa Recovery" plan.
The head of the UN refugee agency has challenged Africa to take tough action against those worsening the plight of millions of its displaced people, including bringing them before international tribunals.
Mr Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said he hoped this week's summit would consider setting up tribunals to try those who failed to abide by peace accords.
British officials said yesterday in Lusaka they had been asked by the Zambian government to help track down the killers of the opposition politician, Paul Tembo, last week.
Tembo's murder cast a dark cloud over the summit.
Meanwhile the Libyan leader Col Moammar Gadafy said that the US was behind recent clashes in Nigeria, Chechnya and elsewhere around the world involving Muslims. "I say, beware of the Americans, do not allow them any influence in your countries," he told Muslims in Lusaka.