African Leaders Receive Zimbabwe President as ‘Hero’

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The New York Sun

LONDON — African leaders gathering for a summit greeted President Mugabe as a “hero” yesterday, dashing hopes that Zimbabwe’s regime would come under immediate international pressure.

President Bongo of Gabon, who has held power for 41 years and won a series of widely criticized elections, gave his public backing for Mr. Mugabe as leaders met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“He was elected, he took an oath, and he is here with us, so he is president and we cannot ask him more,” Mr. Bongo said. “He conducted elections and I think he won.”

Mr. Bongo added that African leaders would not allow Western governments to dictate their view of Zimbabwe. “We have even received Mugabe as a hero,” he said. “We understand the attacks but this is not the way they should react. What they’ve done is, in our opinion, a little clumsy, and we think they could have consulted us first.”

Hours after being inaugurated as president, Mr. Mugabe left for the summit of the African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries on the continent.

However, Mr. Mugabe has not had everything his own way. He has faced fierce criticism from his fellow Africans, and the A.U.’s election observers ruled that Zimbabwe’s presidential contest did not meet democratic “standards,” the first time they have ever denounced an African poll.

Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga, urged the A.U. to respond by taking punitive steps against Mr. Mugabe. “They should suspend him and send peace forces to Zimbabwe to ensure free and fair elections,” he said.

While many are deeply unhappy about Zimbabwe’s crisis, African leaders are unlikely to snub Mr. Mugabe or pass judgment on his country’s crisis at this summit. Instead, they will probably confine themselves to urging Mr. Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to negotiate.

South Africa’s foreign ministry said that talks on the creation of a “transitional government” to cope with Zimbabwe’s “challenges” were needed.

The private frustrations that President Mbeki of South Africa has felt toward Zimbabwe’s regime have now emerged. In 2001, he wrote a 37-page “discussion document” for Mr. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party setting out a series of stark warnings and recommendations.

“Of critical importance is the obvious necessity to ensure that Zimbabwe does not end up in a situation of isolation, confronted by an array of international forces she cannot defeat, condemned to sink into an ever-deepening social and economic crisis,” Mr. Mbeki wrote.

His paper, leaked to the Mail and Guardian, a South African weekly, amounts to a point-by-point critique of Mr. Mugabe’s decisions. Mr. Mbeki urged him to avoid confrontation with Britain, take concerted action to revive the economy, and stop employing the rhetoric of the anti-colonial struggle.

“In conditions of growing impoverishment among the people, it becomes impossible to mobilise these masses on the basis of the anti-colonial struggle,” he wrote.

Mr. Mbeki said that Zanu-PF should “encourage free, open, and critical discussion” and “ensure the freedom of the press.”

He criticized Zanu-PF’s recruitment of veterans of the war against white rule, saying they would only undermine the party’s support.


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