ZIMBABWE:Robert Mugabe came to Tanzania for what was billed as a make or break meeting for his presidency.
Pressure was mounting at home and abroad for the veteran independence fighter to step aside.
With inflation running at more than 1,700 per cent, and a day after Zimbabwe's main opposition leader was arrested, Mr Mugabe must have wondered what sort of reception he would be given by leaders from across Southern Africa.
He was able to leave a satisfied man.
"Very good meeting," he said clapping his hands as he pushed past reporters in the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
All day his aides had told reporters that Mr Mugabe would deliver an uncompromising message to the presidents and prime ministers who had gathered to discuss Zimbabwe's spiralling economic and political crises.
He seemed to get his way.
In a communique issued at the end of the meeting, the 14 countries of the Southern African Development Community called for an end to all economic sanctions against Zimbabwe and expressed their solidarity with the government of Robert Mugabe.
They also took up one of Mugabe's long-standing causes, calling on the British government to compensate white farmers whose land his government has seized.
However, they also acknowledged that Zimbabwe's political landscape needed to change and appointed South African president Thabo Mbeki to promote dialogue between opposition and government figures.
Speaking after the two-day closed meeting, Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania, said there had been no suggestion of asking Robert Mugabe not to run in presidential elections due next year.
He accused opposition groups of using illegal means to further their cause, but added that both sides should come together to find a political solution.
"We have the opposition complaining that their democratic rights have been infringed and we have a government also complaining," he said. "And we have an opposition engaging in violence."
Mr Mugabe has faced mounting criticism from western countries especially since the arrest and hospitalisation of Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition figures earlier this month.
Dissent is also starting to surface within his own party. Meanwhile, Inflation is the highest in the world and aid agencies are preparing for famine.
Earlier this week riot police raided the headquarters of the Movement for Democratic Change, making 20 arrests.
While details of yesterday's meeting remained private, Mr Mugabe's aides said he had delivered a defiant message.
George Charamba, Mr Mugabe's spokesman, said: "The president is here for two basic things - to explain the situation on the ground and to get solidarity from SADC in his fight against the British.
"He will continue to tell the West to go hang as long as those [ western] concerns undermine the sovereignty of the country," he said, referring to economic sanctions.
He also said reports of unrest were being exaggerated by the media.
"Zimbabwe has a security problem on the screen, not the ground," he said. "We have had a problem with petrol bombs - that is student politics and is only a sporadic problem."
The 14 African leaders spent the morning discussing political problems in Lesotho and a growing wave of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo before turning their attention to Zimbabwe.
The country's fortunes have been tied to Mr Mugabe ever since 1980 when he wrested power from a small white elite.
Since then he has plunged the country into economic crisis by seizing the white-owned farms that kept a supply of foreign currency streaming into Zimbabwe.
Almost three million Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa since 2000 when the seizures began. Former colonial power Britain and other western nations have imposed targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and a travel ban on Mugabe and more than 100 of his associates.
Human rights: the case against
Zimbabwean police are beating people suspected of supporting the main opposition party as a crackdown on dissent spreads beyond political circles, according to a researcher with Human Rights Watch.
Tiseke Kasambala, who earlier this month visited Zimbabwe for the US-based human rights group, said she had met people who were savagely abused by police after being accused of ties to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
"The police have been going door to door beating people up," Ms Kasambala said in Johannesburg after returning from a two-week research trip. "The crackdown has spread. It is not just targeted at the opposition but also at ordinary Zimbabweans."
In Harare, MDC secretary general Tendai Biti accused the government of carrying out more than 250 assaults over the last few weeks as well as abductions of opposition officials and civilians as part of a "guerrilla" war to hang on to power. - (Reuters)