Editorial: McKinnon will survive Africa clique

Over the past couple of years, Africa's leaders have demonstrated a new resolve to act collectively on the international stage. The African Union, in large part a product of South Africa's emergence from apartheid-induced isolation, has been developed as a vehicle for joint action. Hand in hand has come the New Partnership for Africa's Development, which seeks to extricate the continent from crippling underdevelopment by cultivating relationships with highly industrialised countries. Such initiatives mean that the Commonwealth occupies a less significant place in the scheme of things for Africa's 16 member countries. Not worthy, perhaps, of meriting sober attention unless it dances to the African beat.

The Commonwealth's downgraded status, and the creed of collectivity, surely underpin African support for a Zimbabwean-inspired bid to unseat Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary-General. Mr McKinnon is accused of being biased against the regime of President Robert Mugabe. In particular, he is said to have taken it upon himself to extend the one-year suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth until at least the heads of government meeting in Nigeria in December.

The suspension had been due to expire in March. At that time, a troika of Commonwealth leaders could not decide how to proceed. Australia's John Howard argued that nothing had happened to justify a change, while South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria's Olusequn Obasanjo urged an immediate end to the suspension. The appropriate compromise, and one broadly supported throughout the Commonwealth, was that the status quo apply until the leaders' meeting.

That gathering should, at the very least, maintain the suspension. The sanction was the minimum credible response to the situation in Zimbabwe. Indeed, the Commonwealth should have delivered more, given Mr Mugabe's abuse of fundamental tenets of human rights and democracy. His fraudulent re-election, the trigger for suspension, has been accompanied by the Government-backed eviction of white farmers from their land, the silencing of the independent media, and control of the Judiciary. Added to that is gross economic mismanagement. Zimbabwe was once Africa's breadbasket; now millions face famine, inflation is rampant, and unemployment is more than 60 per cent.

It is nonsense for Nigeria and South Africa to claim that matters in Zimbabwe have improved sufficiently to warrant the suspension being lifted. In fact, according to Britain's Foreign Office, the situation has deteriorated this year. Land invasions and intimidation are continuing, as is an almost certainly trumped-up treason case against Opposition leader Morgan Tsvingarai.

African leaders clearly feel the collectivist impulse demands that they stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr Mugabe. Disagreement would dilute their ability to advance the continent's cause. In reality, they are opening themselves to ridicule. The essential values of the Commonwealth, which they are so willing to spurn, are shared by the vast majority of the industrialised nations they see as their saviours. Indeed, the United States and the European Union have taken stronger stands against Mr Mugabe's despotic rule than the Commonwealth.

Mr McKinnon deserves a second term as Commonwealth Secretary-General. He has helped to restore democracy to Fiji. And if there has been no progress in Zimbabwe, his hands have been tied by the African leaders' foolish throwing down of the gauntlet. Their bid to unseat him will surely come to nought. The damage they are inflicting on the Commonwealth is, however, less easy to dismiss.