Commonwealth awaits Mugabe’s response

The Commonwealth is awaiting a formal response from Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to a decision by foreign ministers to send a fact-finding mission to Harare, a secretariat spokesman said on Monday. Secretary-general Don McKinnon wrote to Mugabe last week explaining the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group’s (CMAG) decision to send an eight-member mission. “At the moment we are awaiting an official response from President Mugabe,” the official told IRIN.

Amid mounting concerns over human rights and Zimbabwe’s political crisis, CMAG agreed last week to send a team to “conduct consultations with the Zimbabwe government, convey its concerns and offer any appropriate Commonwealth assistance,” a statement said. “Ministers request the full cooperation of the government of Zimbabwe so that this mission can take place as soon as possible, in order that they can prepare for and advise the forthcoming meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government accordingly,” it added.

The Commonwealth’s confirmation that a letter was sent to Mugabe followed a denial over the weekend by Minister of State for Information Jonathan Moyo. “That is a blatant lie. We have not received any correspondence from them. They made a press statement about a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe and we expressed our position through Stan Mudenge, the foreign affairs minister,” Moyo told the independent ‘Daily News’. Last week Mudenge described CMAG’s decision as “outrageous” and “illegal”. The Commonwealth official told IRIN that he could not respond to Mudenge’s comments as the issue was “sensitive”.