Botswana backs soft line on Harare

Botswana has backed South Africa’s “quiet diplomacy” over the political and economic crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe and opposed open condemnation of President Robert Mugabe’s government. The ‘Financial Times’ reported that President Festus Mogae of Botswana said on Wednesday during a visit to London to promote the African diamond industry, that a policy of constructive engagement with Zimbabwe was the right one given Mugabe’s sensitivity to criticism.

“I take it that they (the South Africans) are engaged with Zimbabwe and express their views of the situation as they see it,” he said. “They don’t have an alternative. To try to criticise Zimbabwe publicly would have no useful purpose. But no man is an island,” he said.