Zimbabwe was not part of the agreed agenda of the summit, SADC secretary-general Tomaz Salomao told reporters.
Our position is that we are dealing with the issue, President Thabo Mbeki is dealing with the issue … Zimbabwe is our problem, we are dealing with it.
The 14-nation bloc tasked Mbeki earlier this year with mediating between Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu(PF) party and the opposition after several opposition leaders were assaulted by members of Mugabe’s security forces.
Salomao was speaking the day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed Mugabe for harming the image of the new Africa with his human rights record.
Merkel called on European and African leaders on Saturday to push for a renewal of democracy in Zimbabwe.
The current state of Zimbabwe damages the image of the new Africa. Because this is so, we must take the chance here, in this framework, to put all our efforts together into strengthening democracy, Merkel told the leaders of 26 European and 53 African states.
In her audience was Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who is regarded in Europe as having driven his country to political, agricultural and financial collapse.
He has been banned from entering the EU since 2002, but the ban was waived for the summit.
Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown refused to go to the summit when Mugabe was invited.
But despite that boycott, we, the whole EU, are unified in our assessment of the situation in the country, Merkel stressed. Zimbabwe’s situation concerns us all, in Europe as well as in Africa.
After Merkel had accused Mugabe of harming the image of the new Africa, President Thabo Mbeki – the prime champion of the African Renaissance – reframed the debate.
We continue to face challenges relating to governance in Africa, as this is the case with other regions of the world, Mbeki said.
However, to put the matter frankly, by far the biggest challenge we face in terms of implementing our programmes on good governance and human rights is the issue of resources.
An African diplomat present at the meeting said Mbeki then departed from his script and accused Merkel of being out of touch with the political situation in Zimbabwe.
Mugabe had been widely expected to respond to Merkel’s speech but in the event, he did not react to it, Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern told journalists.
Mugabe, 83, did respond to his critics at a closed-door speech yesterday, details of which were not immediately available.
The summit, the second ever, yesterday approved an agreement aimed at forging a new relationship of equals between the two continents, a European source said.
The 67 leaders signed the Africa-EU Strategic Partnership agreement to take their relationship to a new, strategic level.
The two-day summit had been billed as an opportunity to forge a relationship of genuine equals.
But the 67 leaders saw starkly different viewpoints emerge over such issues as human rights and immigration, with the shadow of colonialism preventing the display of any real warmth.
Summit host Portugal nevertheless sought to put the meeting in the best possible light.
All the essential issues for Europe and for Africa, were broached, Prime Minister Jose Socrates told reporters yesterday. There were no taboo issues. It was a meeting that showed a mature and open relationship.
But while the message from Europe was that no one would be pressured into agreement, African Union commission president Alpha Oumar Konare warned EU negotiators to avoid playing certain African regions off against each other.
It’s important we avoid patterns of thinking that belong to a different era, he said. No one will make us believe we don’t have the right to protect our economic fabric.
EU development commissioner Louis Michel hit back: I think that it was excessive and unjustified and that it was not the best way to defend the interests of Africa.
Joao Gomes Cravinho, Portugal’s secretary of state for co-operation and development, said the issue of Zimbabwe had been marginal, although Mugabe’s presence did prompt the former colonial power Britain to keep its ministers away from the summit.
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