MUGABE and PATTERSONPRIME MINISTER P.J. Patterson chaired a meeting of six nations yesterday, charged by Common-wealth leaders with brokering a deal between Zimbabwe and the rest of the Commonwealth and to re-engage with its embattled leader, Robert Mugabe, the Associated Press is reporting.
Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Mozambique and South Africa were to set benchmarks for Mr. Mugabe and to find a way to monitor his progress.
Mr. Patterson, according to the report, had begun drafting a text of their recommendations and the six-nation committee was expected to meet again this morning to decide whether they could agree on a final text to present to other leaders.
"Coming out of this group will ultimately be the way forward, the blueprint for re-engagement with Zimbabwe," Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon, was reported as saying. "There really is a desire to engage. There really is a desire to see Zimbabwe adhere strongly to Commonwealth principles."
However, it was not smooth sailing even among the committee members trying to bring Zimbabwe back into the fold.
STRONGLY DIVERGENT VIEWS
According to AP, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a panel member, said committee members held "some strongly divergent views" on stands toward Zimbabwe.
"I think we have made some progress but I do not want to get people too elevated in their expectations," Mr. Howard said.
Yesterday Mr. Mugabe said his Government would pull out o
the 54-nation Commonwealth group following a resolution passed by his ruling ZANU-PF party. He said at a political meeting in Zimbabwe that the Commonwealth had been hijacked by racists interfering in his country's internal affairs. He gave no sign of when the country would withdraw from the club of mostly former British colonies but Reuters quoted him as saying, "If we say we are doing this, we will do it. We never retreat.
A MERE CLUB
"The Commonwealth is a mere club, but it has become like an 'Animal Farm' where some members are more equal than others. How can (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair claim to regulate and direct events and still say all of us are equals?"
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth last year, Mugabe being accused of rigging his re-election in 2002 and harassing opponents. Mugabe is banned from the Commonwealth summit being held in Nigeria. But the Commonwealth's top executive yesterday urged Mr. Mugabe to reconsider his threat to pull out of the bloc of Britain and its former colonies.f
