ZIMBABWE:Western powers have no moral right to demonise Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda said yesterday.
Mr Kaunda, one of the few African statesmen with Mr Mugabe's liberation-era credentials, said Zimbabwe's economic and political woes were largely due to "broken promises" by former colonial power Britain on land reforms.
"Mugabe should not be demonised . . . he will not accept any humiliation. He needs to be talked to see sense in doing something to change things in Zimbabwe, because he is a victim of broken promises from Britain," Mr Kaunda said.
"We need to find an answer and not to throw accusations at him." Mr Kaunda said Zimbabwe required the immediate intervention of African leaders and this would have to be through talks that brought Mr Mugabe and leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, together.
Mr Tsvangirai was badly beaten this month after he attempted to attend a banned protest rally, spurring international condemnation of Mr Mugabe's government.
Few African governments have joined in the criticism, although Zambia's president Levy Mwanawasa compared Zimbabwe to a "sinking Titanic" on Tuesday and said the region would have to agree on a new approach to Mr Mugabe.
Mr Kaunda said Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, former Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano and other African leaders should act quickly to guide Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai towards a negotiated settlement. "Of course, what is happening in Zimbabwe needs to be solved and African leaders must get involved," he said.
Mr Kaunda accused the British government of failing to honour a 1979 agreement to carry out land reforms in its former colony to rectify post-independence imbalances in land ownership between black and white.
Mr Kaunda played a major role in Zimbabwe gaining independence from Britain in 1980.
"I attended a meeting in London where [ former British prime minister] Margaret Thatcher agreed to help Zimbabwe to carry out a land redistribution exercise, but when the Labour Party came to power, they withdrew from the programme," Mr Kaunda said.
"I wonder when I hear Tony Blair calling Mugabe names, because it is him that caused this problem and the West have no moral right to criticise Mugabe," he said.
Mr Mugabe, now 83 and Zimbabwe's sole ruler since 1980, has often accused London of backsliding on the "Lancaster House" deal which paved the way for the African country's independence.
The Lancaster House agreement ended a bush war and paved the way for the country's first all-race election and the victory of black majority rule in white Rhodesia. But it left most of the country's best land in white hands.
In 2000 President Mugabe launched a programme of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks, a move which critics say gutted the key commercial agriculture sector and launched Zimbabwe on its downward spiral.