The Zimbabwean parliament has passed legislation fixing responsibility on Britain, the former colonial power, to compensate white farmers for land confiscated by the government. President Robert Mugabe has agreed to go ahead with elections at the end of May but relations with Britain are worsening. Gemini News Service reports on an early challenge for the new Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon.
THE moment the 61-year-old New Zealander Don McKinnon stepped into his new job as Commonwealth Secretary-General he found himself plunged into a major crisis.
Violence in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe's bitter quarrel with Britain, and the prospect of a May parliamentary election that could herald the end of his long reign — which began as prime minister in 1980 — are matters that have begun to preoccupy McKinnon.
A foreign minister for 10 years, he is likely to find himself centre stage in the first months of his new office.
McKinnon took over as secretary-general from Chief Emeka Anyaoku on 1 April. As he did so. Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Robin Cook, was confronting Mugabe at the Africa-European Union summit in Cairo, white farmers in Zimbabwe were under siege from groups of ang, y squatters, and anti-Mugabe demonstrators were being beaten up in the streets of Harare.
It was as if the clock had been turned back 20 years to the days when the British government of Margaret Thatcher was trying in vain on the eve of Independence to keep Mugabe from power in favour of a coalition led by his late rival Joshua Nkomo.
Nkoino lost the 1980 election and eventually became vice-president. Mugabe effectively cemented white-black re-
lations. but in the historic three-and-half-month Lancaster House talks in 1979 a crucial Issue had been fudged — land ownership.
At the recent Cairo summit, the former Zambian leader Kenneth Kamida blamed Britain for this lapse. He was right. At Lancaster House, it had been proposed that a fund would be set up to compensate white fanners If their land was acquired by Zimbabweans.
When Zimbabwe settled down to independence, the fund
w’as quietly forgotten. Twenty’ years later. 11 million hectares of prime land are owned by 4.500 white farmers. One million black farms share 16 million hectares — much of it poor soil.
No one disputes the need for land reform, but Zimbabwean negotiations with Britain and other donor countries broke down because land was being allocated to ministers and party officials rather than to needy African farmers.
What is happening in Zimbabwe now Is plainly against the spirit of the Harare Declaration approved by the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting of 1991. which was presided over by Mugabe. This laid down the accepted political principles for member states, such as democracy, good governance and the rule of law.
In a new biography — Eye of Fire by Phyllis Johnson — Chief Anyaoku is quoted as saying after that summit: "Zimbabwe occupies a special place in the history of the evolution of the modern Commonwealth.
"The crisis in Rhodesia (the pre-Independence name] posed the most serious threat to the continued cohesion — indeed at a certain stage, the existence — of the modern Commonwealth."
He added: "Zimbabwe moved to freedom...in a remarkable and continuing act of reconciliation."
But now. the British press Is
calling for the suspension or even expulsion of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth, and a racial element has crept into comments — reminiscent of the long years of lan Smith's white Rhodesian regime.
Mugabe has stirred the pot with Britain further by repeated intemperate remarks about Prime Minister Tony Blair'sU "cabinet of gays". |
Two African Common-■ wealth heavyweights. Presi-BJ dents Olusegun Obasanjo o® Nigeria and Thabo Mbeki o^^ South Africa, are worried byW events in Zimbabwe and ac«| lively trying to calm Mugabe^ He can be a difficult man to calm 5
The Commonwealth mecha nism for dealing with the kin* of situation arising in Zim babwe is scrutiny by the Com monwealth Ministerial Actloi Group (CMAG) of eight foreign* ministers, of which McKinnoi has been deputy chairman.
Its guidelines provide fo suspension of a member tn thi case of military takeover o other unconstitutional over throw of government or of "se rious and persistent violations of the Harare Declaration. A se of tighter rules was deferred a last November's Common wraith summit in Durban.
In valedictory remarks it March. Anyaoku regretted thi delav and said that If these fur l her rules had now been li force, the case of Zitnbabw would become eligible fo CMAGs scrutiny.