Mugabe Ambushed in Lisbon

African and European leaders on Sunday ended their two-day summit in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, with the adoption of a Declaration pledging their commitment to a new strategic partnership based on interdependence, equal sovereignty and respect. I will return to the thorny issues of trade as it relates to competition and liberalization.

Thankfully one issue was not forgotten; MUGABE:

If Mugabe thought his only outspoken enemy was British Premier Gordon Brown, he was dead wrong. After haven been baited by Brussels to attend the second AU-EU meetings with the hope of launching yet another vitriolic attack on his arch enemy , the UK, he was spell bound when German Chancellor Angela Merkel did what was onerous, but humane. She fell short an inch of describing Mugabe as the new evil on the block, “damaging the image of new Africa". Mugabe, who felt like the earth opening for him to be swallowed couldn’t hide his gory face and had to be soothed by his colleague African leaders who as usual see him as the last bastion of African freedom. Such misguided adulation for open tyranny is the very reason why Africa is in a mess.

However, the EU ought to share in the blame for the state of affairs in Zimbabwe and any of the continent’s troubled spot, albeit retrospective. The West’s past misdeeds were usually compensated by massive injection of poor people’s taxes from the West to the rich and pillaging leaders of Independent era African leaders. Despite the common knowledge that such freebies only politicized life on the continent, they have continued and metamorphosed into grand schemes, with torrents of aid being poured into schemes such as Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa and the US’s Millennium Challenge Account. Mugabe and his closest pal, Al Bashir of Sudan would be unworthy recipients of such monies, but then the fact that other shameful leaders such as Congo’s Dennis Sasso Nguesso would receive money after blowing $300,000 in one visit to Washington should make our tummy churn in awe.

We know this absurdity will continue for a while, especially as China now gives freely without meddling in good governance indicators in a country. May be it gives Africa some amount of sovereignty and ownership of policies- but such ownership should include the responsibility of the consequences of bad judgment and bad leadership

We should be happy however that as host Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates described the meeting as a "summit of equals", he truly meant "We are equal in our human dignity... but also equal in terms of political responsibility,”.