Commonwealth backs Britain - Cook

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told parliament on Wednesday that the Commonwealth has backed Britain’s concerns over the situation in Zimbabwe.

He said that the eight-member Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group at a meeting in London on Tuesday universally endorsed all Britain’s concerns over “the continuing violence, the illegal occupations, the failure to uphold the rule of law and political intimidation” in Zimbabwe. “The outcome exposes the efforts of President Mugabe to pretend that only Britain is critical of the conduct of his government,” Cook said.

He announced that in the present circumstances of spreading violence, the government has resolved to refuse, as from Wednesday, all new export licence applications for arms and military equipment to Zimbabwe and to suspend the programme to support the supply of Land Rovers to the Zimbabwean police.