SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki attacked the Commonwealth yesterday, saying the group was not working to solve Zimbabwe's problems and had lost sight of their root cause - which he said was land redistribution.
In his weekly letter to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Mr Mbeki said some in the group of mainly former British colonies were more set on extending sanctions against Zimbabwe than on sorting out the political and economic crisis in South Africa's northern neighbour.
Last week, a divided Commonwealth summit in Abuja, Nigeria, decided by consensus to indefinitely extend Zimbabwe's suspension - first imposed in 2002 - saying President Robert Mugabe's government was violating the group's democratic values. Zimbabwe responded by withdrawing from the 54-nation group. "At the Abuja , the land question in Zimbabwe was not discussed," Mr Mbeki said. "Indeed, the land question has disappeared from the global discourse about Zimbabwe, except when it is mentioned to highlight the plight of the former white landowners and attribute food shortages [to it]."
Mr Mbeki said Britain, the UN and the European Union had not honoured their commitments to help finance the redistribution of farms in Zimbabwe, worsening problems there.
Mr Mugabe has led a drive to give white-owned farms to landless blacks. He says this is necessary to right the wrongs of colonialism, which left the bulk of Zimbabwe's fertile land in the hands of minority whites. But the programme has faced intense Western criticism and helped turn the former regional bread basket into a famine zone.
- (Reuters)