Zimbabwe: Govt, Allies Attack Zambian President

12 April 2008
allAfrica.com

As southern African heads of state gathered in Lusaka to discuss Zimbabwe's political crisis on Saturday, the Harare government and its allies launched an attack on Zamibian President Levy Mwanawasa for convening the summit.

Mwanawasa "has clearly overstepped his boundaries," wrote a columnist in Zimbabwe's government-controlled Herald newspaper on Saturday. Nathaniel Manheru, a pseudonym for President Robert Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, disparagingly called the Lusaka meeting "Levy's summit, for that is exactly what it will be..."

He added that the meeting was "supposed to do the bidding of the white West... I am sure if African leaders show up... many of the founding fathers of this great region... will turn in their graves."

Mugabe is boycotting the summit. One of three cabinet ministers representing Zimbabwe, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa claimed to Agence France-Presse in Lusaka that the meeting was "sponsored" by the British government.

He also vigorously protested the fact that Mugabe's principal challenger for the presidency, Morgan Tsvangirai, had been invited. "Inviting an opposition leader to a heads of state meeting is unheard of," he told AFP. "We will not accept Tsvangirai to be part of this meeting."

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