Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has urged Southern African leaders to play a more active role in bringing about a transition to an inclusive government in Zimbabwe.

President Robert Mugabe's government "has not demonstrated the ability to lead the country out of its current crisis," Annan said in a statement issued in Paris Sunday. "There is bitter disappointment in the current leadership."

The statement was issued after a meeting of the group of former leaders known as "The Elders." A delegation of from the group comprising Annan, former President Jimmy Carter of the United States and former Mozambican education minister Graça Machel was recently denied entry to Zimbabwe.

Carter said in Sunday's statement that "the [Mugabe] regime has been in denial about what is happening in their country, and the region has not really wanted to know either." He too urged "the rapid formation of a workable government."

Another "Elder" former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi said said that a liberation movement and its leaders "lose their legitimacy when they not only ignore the suffering of their people but actually act in a manner that increases their suffering dramatically."

Brahimi said African leaders - and Southern African leaders in particular - had a duty to come to the aid of Zimbabweans.