No progress on Commonwealth concerns - report

The government of Zimbabwe has not made progress towards addressing concerns raised by the Commonwealth and has rebuffed all offers of assistance, according to a report by the Commonwealth secretary-general, leaked to the media this week. "Overall, the general political, economic and social situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated since March 2002," the report said. The report was produced last month by secretary-general Don McKinnon to facilitate the review of Zimbabwe's one-year suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth, which was to have expired on 19 March. The suspension was upheld until December following consultations by McKinnon across the 54-member body. Nigeria and South Africa supported lifting the suspension, saying Zimbabwe had made progress, but Australia, the third member of the "troika" mandated to monitor the issue, disagreed. Zimbabwe's suspension from the group was announced in the Marlborough House Statement of 19 March 2002. Among other conditions contained in the statement, the secretary-general was asked to engage with the government to ensure the implementation of recommendations from a Commonwealth Observer Group's (COG) report, released after last year's presidential elections. The recommendations included the need to end the "systemic" use of violence in political campaigns, especially against the opposition, and the repeal of certain laws, like the Public Order and Security Act and the Access to Information and Privacy Act, which "impede freedoms of association and movement". Suggestions for improving the electoral process and making it independent of the government were also made. However, McKinnon said repeated attempts to engage President Robert Mugabe directly or indirectly had failed. He had met once with the country's foreign minister, Stan Mudenge, on the sidelines of last year's African Union summit, when he was told that the Zimbabwe government considered the COG report flawed and the troika's mandate illegitimate. "With the rejection by Zimbabwe of the COG report, no steps have been taken to implement any of the group's recommendations, or indeed the recommendations contained in the Report of COG to the 2000 Zimbabwe Parliamentary Elections," McKinnon's report said. The constitutional, legislative and electoral framework for the conduct of elections remained unchanged, and POSA and AIPA remained on the statute books. The institutions of law and order continued to function, "but there is widespread evidence of selective enforcement of their functions, particularly by the police, and widespread allegations of abuses of power". McKinnon noted that there continued to be a disturbing pattern of political pressure on the judiciary, especially judges thought to be unsympathetic to the government. Referring to the government's fast-track land reform programme, the secretary-general said neither the Abuja agreement dealing with farm occupations, nor any of the UN Development Programme's (UNDP) recommendations had been heeded. He continued to believe there was a moral case for the United Kingdom to contribute towards land reform in Zimbabwe. "Indeed, the government of the United Kingdom has undertaken to do so under the Abuja Agreement, in the context of a UNDP-backed programme to which the government of Zimbabwe has also formally committed itself." However, he added that the Zimbabwe government's programme was viewed as flawed, as it offered no effective compensation for farms compulsorily acquired, many from owners who had original titles and had paid in cash. Moreover, many farmworkers had been excluded from the programme. The report also expressed concern over the collapse of talks between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which ZANU-PF stopped attending because the MDC had challenged Mugabe's victory in the 2002 presidential elections in court. A spokesman for the South African government, whose President Thabo Mbeki was part of the troika, told IRIN that any comments on the report would probably be made at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, in December where Zimbabwe's suspension would be discussed. A spokesman for the Zimbabwe government was not immediately available for comment. For the full report