African nations to drop Mugabe sanctions

Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's President, and Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian President, are planning to drop Commonwealth sanctions against Zimbabwe when they come up for renewal next month.

The move would, in effect, hand President Robert Mugabe another diplomatic triumph. France has agreed to host the embattled Zimbabwe leader at a summit later this month.

The South African and Nigerian leaders, who met in Pretoria yesterday, have been working to pre-empt John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister and third member of the tri-nation Commonwealth panel on Zimbabwe, who wants to expel Zimbabwe from the organisation over Mr Mugabe's human rights abuses.

Mr Obasanjo will meet Mr Mugabe tomorrow to persuade the Zimbabwean leader to implement reforms before the Commonwealth panel meeting. Mr Mbeki and Mr Obasanjo will then argue against renewing sanctions as a way of encouraging Mr Mugabe to implement even more reforms. This will leave Mr Howard isolated and the view of the two African leaders will prevail, officials say.

Mr Mbeki reportedly told Tony Blair last week that Mr Mugabe had promised Nkosazana Zuma, South Africa's Foreign Minister, last month to implement various reforms to ease media and political restrictions in Zimbabwe.

A senior Zimbabwean Foreign Ministry official said: "The foreign ministers were representing their leaders and gave Mugabe the same message – that he must reform to make their work easier when they meet Howard. President Obasanjo will be here to buttress that position."

Messrs Mbeki, Obasanjo and Howard are due to meet in South Africa next month to review their decision to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth after Mr Mugabe was re-elected last March in elections dismissed by Commonwealth observers as fraudulent.

Addressing a press conference after meeting Mr Mbeki yesterday, Mr Obasanjo said only "constructive engagement" with Mr Mugabe would help Zimbabwe out of its political and economic crisis.

The two leaders vowed to continue with their policy of quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe.

Mr Obasanjo said: "We must help Zimbabwe out of its predicament and problem. We cannot do that if we become unduly and unnecessarily critical and antagonistic to Zimbabwe. We must remain constructively engaged with Zimbabwe.

"If there are points to be raised with Zimbabwe, like brothers we put ourselves in a room, we lock the door and we tell ourselves [the] truth."

* The main state witness in the treason trial of the Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had "meddled" in foreign politics as far back as the 1980 US presidential elections, George Bizos, Mr Tsvangirai's lawyer, said yesterday.

The US Congress found Ari Ben Menashe lied over the fate of US hostages held in Iran during the election race won by Ronald Reagan, Mr Bizos told the High Court in Harare. Mr Tsvangirai is accused of trying to kill Mr Mugabe last year.