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'Keep pressure on Harare'
02/12/2007 23:26 - (SA)
Lusaka - Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has urged the British prime minister to continue speaking out against Zimbabwe until a solution is found to the country's crises, media reported on Sunday.
Mwanawasa, who heads the southern African regional bloc SADC, welcomed the pressure Gordon Brown was putting on Harare, but expressed disappointment at his boycott of next weekend's EU-Africa summit in Portugal, reports said.
The British leader said last week he would not attend the meeting if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was there.
"I have said the nation faces a lot of challenges. Now, he (Brown) shouldn't get tired of speaking and he must continue until the harvest (of his efforts)," privately-owned The Sunday Post newspaper quoted Mwanawasa as saying.
"I appeal to Brown and the entire British nation that they should continue with their efforts until the situation in Zimbabwe has been resolved," he was quoted as telling reporters on Saturday in Lusaka.
State-owned newspapers such as The Sunday Mail and The Sunday Times also reported the story. "Do not give up on Zimbabwe", wrote the Mail's headline.
Zimbabwe is currently in the throes of an economic crisis.
It has the world's highest rate of inflation - about 8 000% - while four in every five people are unemployed and 80% of the population live below the poverty threshold.
Mwanawasa, who spoke as he was leaving for Germany, en route to Portugal for the summit, welcomed the fact that Brown had agreed to send a representative to the Lisbon meeting.
The Zambian leader, who heads the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), once likened the situation in neighbouring Zimbabwe to that of a "sinking Titanic" where citizens were jumping out to seek refuge in other countries.
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