UK envoy warns rogue leaders

In an exclusive statement commenting on the sensitive issue for the first time in the media, Canning warned that governments which tried to stifle debate and failed to respect the rule of law would “increasingly find themselves on the wrong side of history”. He was commenting on a speech made by, William Hague, the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, at The Times Summit on African Business Opportunities held in London last week.

In his stinging address, Hague said one of the emerging lessons “of the crisis in the Middle East” was that “demands for freedom will spread, and that undemocratic government’s elsewhere should take heed”. The British Government regularly blasts President Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF), accusing them of failing the people who had voted them into power at Independence in 1980.

“The effects of this crisis (in Middle East) are already ripping out in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa,” Hague. “In Zimbabwe, for example, over 40 student activists and trade unionists were arrested for Treason simply for watching video footage of protests in Egypt and Tunisia.” He praised Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, saying he had managed to steer the struggling economy from a period of hyperinflation to a period of almost zero inflation at the moment.

Canning said : “William Hague made it very clear that Britain is not seeking to dictate change in countries like Zimbabwe. But he equally made it plain that those governments which fail to deliver what they should – good and accountable governance – and which spoon-feed their people a diet of vitriol and coercion, rather than a positive vision of the future – will increasingly find themselves on the wrong side of history”.