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Peacekeeper training centre reopens in Zimbabwe
Stella Mapenzauswa, Reuters
August 05, 2005

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/

HARARE (Reuters) - Southern Africa reopened a peacekeeping training centre on Friday in Zimbabwe, the region's most troubled nation, with a warning that it would not allow Western donors to dictate how the facility was run.

The centre, which trains military personnel for peacekeeping missions both within and outside Africa, opened in 1996 but closed in 2001 after Denmark withdrew support over policy differences with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government.

South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, who is chairman of the regional Southern African Development Community's (SADC) inter-state defence and security committee, said member states would fund the centre themselves.

"While we will continue to rely on the support of our friends elsewhere around the world, in assuming and taking over this institution as we do we are also accepting the responsibility that primary resources of all types must now come from the country member states of the SADC community," he said.

"We will cooperate with anybody and everybody ... from far afield beyond the confines of Africa as long as their cooperation does not threaten African unity," Lekota added.

Friday's ceremony saw the SADC assume the running of the centre from Zimbabwe, which fell out with Western donors after Mugabe sponsored the seizure of white-owned farms to redistribute to landless black Zimbabweans, starting in 2000. Western governments also say he rigged subsequent elections.

Lekota defended the establishment of the centre in Zimbabwe, saying it was in recognition of the country's role in promoting Africa's freedom from colonisation.

African countries, led by regional powerhouse South Africa, have stood by Mugabe in the face of an onslaught from Western countries and groups like the European Union, which have clashed with the veteran leader's government over charges of human rights abuses and electoral rigging, which Harare rejects.

South Africa is discussing a loan to Zimbabwe to help meet mounting arrears to the International Monetary Fund, but has faced criticism from opposition groups in Zimbabwe who say any money should be used first to help hundreds of thousands of people left homeless or destitute by slum demolitions.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, denies charges of misrule levelled against him, and says his Western opponents have sabotaged Zimbabwe's economy to punish him for land seizures, leading to chronic shortages of food and fuel, unemployment of more than 70 percent and 3-digit inflation.

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