Zim ready to 'say goodbye'

2003-11-28 11:48

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that the southern African country was prepared to give up its membership to the Commonwealth if it was not treated as an equal.

He also suggested he was still waiting for an invitation to next week's Commonwealth Heads of Governments (CHOGM) summit in Abuja, Nigeria.

"If our sovereignty is what we have to lose to be readmitted into the Commonwealth, well, we will say goodbye to the Commonwealth, and perhaps time has now come to say so," Mugabe said in a eulogy at a funeral of a former nationalist.

Club of equals

"We expect no less (equal status) from the Commonwealth if it merits our membership, if its claim to be a club of equals is to be sustained.

"And I want to see whether that principle of equal membership shall be sustained as we proceed to the next session of CHOGM," Mugabe said in his speech, broadcast on state radio.

Early this week Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is hosting next week's CHOGM summit, said Mugabe had not been invited. But there has been no official acknowledgement here of the refusal to invite Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the 54-member grouping of former British colonies in March last year following a presidential election that some international observer groups said was marred by violence, intimidation and fundamental electoral flaws.

- AFP