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Commonwealth chief hopes Zim will rejoin bloc
Mail & Guardian (SA)
January 25, 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=296916

Commonwealth secretary general Don McKinnon on Wednesday voiced disappointment at Zimbabwe's worsening political crisis and hoped the Southern African nation would eventually rejoin the bloc.

"We are very sad about the situation in Zimbabwe, we hope they will uphold standards of human rights and they will come back and join the Commonwealth," McKinnon said at a high school outside the capital Nairobi.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in 2003 following the previous year's presidential elections that extended the mandate of President Robert Mugabe, despite widespread irregularities.

Angry at a Commonwealth decision to indefinitely prolong Zimbabwe's suspension from the bloc's ruling councils at a 2004 summit in Nigeria, Mugabe pulled his country out of the club of mainly former British colonies and vowed never to return.

"I regret to say that Zimbabwe did not wish to come back. I believe they will come back some day," McKinnon said after holding talks with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

Zimbabwe currently faces four-digit inflation, massive joblessness, and growing poverty.

Once a regional breadbasket, the country has increasingly relied on food aid and imports since 2000 when the government launched controversial land reforms evicting white farmers to make way for landless blacks.

McKinnon is scheduled to travel to Tanzania before proceeding to Ethiopia to participate in an African Union summit. – Sapa-AFP

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