Africa backs Mugabe

Foreign ministers from the G8 grouping of the world's richest and most powerful countries have called on other African leaders to denounce the forced evictions which are causing so much suffering in Zimbabwe.
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But it seems unlikely that Africa's other leaders will sympathise with the displaced rather than with a fellow president…

The naïve and disingenuous response to this call was expected; after all, Menghistu "THE BUTCHER OF ADDIS" Hailemariam lives in a posh Harare suburb.

Furthermore:

I hope also that as a member of the commission, President Mkapa of Tanzania will be called to account for his statements made at the African economic summit in South Africa when the news began to emerge of the terrible events named "Operation Clean Up Filth". He said that this was no more than an, "ongoing clear-up operation, necessary to deal with some of the activities compounding economic difficulties facing the country, and to wipe out a secondary economy that was becoming increasingly active and exacerbating the challenges the country was already contending with".

And:

The 81-year-old president, who has ruled the southern African country since independence in 1980, said the mass bulldozing of houses and businesses was to curb "lawlessness, illicit foreign currency dealings, black marketeering, rampant thefts, prostitution and other social ills so detrimental to social morality and decency." He claimed that the program had been "well-received by the majority of our people."

If you want to give any credence to this poppycock you would also have to admit that all this "lawlessness, illicit foreign currency dealings, black marketeering, rampant thefts, prostitution" (unknown before and in the first years after independence) comes from Mugabe's mismanagement and greed.

Secret talks are underway to find a diplomatic solution to Zimbabwe's ruin at the hand of this old, bitter, vengeful and little man:

BRITISH government diplomats have held secret talks in Zimbabwe aimed at persuading Robert Mugabe to hand over power and return his devastated nation to the Commonwealth, it was claimed last night.
Senior sources in London and Zimbabwe told Scotland on Sunday that the dictator's closest allies have been pressing the British government to relax its stance against Mugabe in advance of an attempted breakthrough in the stalemate at the G8 summit in Scotland this week.

To give in to this would be a mistake the UK government cannot afford; it would clearly be perceived as a move to save the debt relief program and the Commonwealth, not Zimbabwe. What the UK should do instead, is to follow Baroness Park of Monmouth advise:

Most of the G8 is committed to relief for Africa and the forgiving of debt. My suggestion is that the Prime Minister should use his position to persuade his colleagues in the G8, or some of them at least, to persuade the African leaders to live up to their undertakings. President Mbeki will be in Gleneagles, for example.