We have detected that the browser you are using is no longer supported. As a result, some content may not display correctly.
We suggest that you upgrade to the latest version of any of the following browsers:
close notification
Zimb
abwean President Robert Mugabe has not been invited to the
Commonwealth summit due to be held in Nigeria next month, Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo said yesterday.
"He will not have an invitation," Obasanjo told reporters in the
gardens of his farm in the southwestern Nigerian town of
Otta.
Obasanjo said that he expected 52 other leaders of the
Commonwealth, a global association of mainly former British
colonies, to attend the meeting, which opens on December 5 in the
Nigerian capital Abuja.
But Mugabe and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf will not be
attending as their nations are suspended from the Commonwealth's
ruling councils.
Zimbabwe's suspension came after Mugabe's March 2002 reelection in
polls which the opposition and many in the international community
rejected as deeply flawed and marred by violence.
The Commonwealth suspended Pakistan's membership after Musharraf
seized power in an army coup and toppled Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif's elected government in October 1999.
Britain, Australia and Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon
have insisted that Mugabe should not be invited to the Abuja
summit, but Obasanjo, as host, had the final say over
invitations.
After talks last week in Harare with Mugabe, Obasanjo did not rule
out the possibility of inviting his Zimbabwean counterpart to the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), despite fierce
opposition, mainly from white Commonwealth countries.
"I am consulting," the Nigerian leader said then, when asked
whether Zimbabwe would attend.
Mugabe, for his part, gave the impression he was preparing to pack
his bags.
"We look forward to attending the Abuja CHOGM," he said, standing
next to Obasanjo.
He told state media that Zimbabwe had no case to answer and should
be allowed to attend the Abuja talks.
"As far as we are concerned, and even as we were placed under
sanctions which expired in March ... there is no case really for
Zimbabwe to answer.
We must be allowed to attend the CHOGM 2003 in Abuja because we are
a full member of the Commonwealth," Mugabe was quoted by the ZIANA
news agency as telling state media.
The suspension was extended in March until December. –
Sapa-AFP.
Map
