Zimbabwe's president, PM worlds apart in Tanzania

[May 05, 2010]  HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe's president and prime minister may both be in Tanzania this week, but they didn't even share a flight to get there. The agendas of the longtime rivals are worlds apart too, raising more questions about their struggling coalition government.

President Robert Mugabe was attending a meeting Wednesday to combat Western "neocolonialism," while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai sought investment in Zimbabwe's ailing economy from Western business leaders and international agencies.

The separate trips show how deep divisions remain in Zimbabwe's power-sharing coalition government, which was forged last year as a compromise after disputed national elections in 2008.

Mugabe, 86, is attending a summit of African liberation leaders who had fought for independence from colonial-era rule. Zimbabwean state radio, which is controlled by Mugabe's party, says the meeting is aimed at finding ways to combat the resurgence of Western imperialist threats to developing nations.

Tsvangirai flew separately for a meeting of the World Economic Forum on Africa, a Western-backed conference on investment and development aid, his office said.

Rugare Gumbo, a spokesman for Mugabe's party, said Mugabe will not cross town from the "liberators summit" to visit the economic forum meeting.

"The summit is very important to us as a liberation movement," he said. "It will enable our party to inform our other comrades on the problems of sanctions we are facing from the Western countries."

Mugabe, who has been in power for 30 years in Zimbabwe, blames Western economic sanctions for the nation's economic meltdown. It began after he ordered the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket now facing acute food shortages.

Tsvangirai's party opposed that program and a new one to hand over 51 percent control of mostly white-owned businesses to blacks. Tsvangirai's party says those measures scared off much-needed investment, which they see as a priority for Zimbabwe's ailing economy.

Tsvangirai's views have won him Western support, but that is unlikely to help him at home. He leaves for the U.S. on Saturday to receive an award from former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright for "tireless efforts to restore democracy, human rights and the rule of law to Zimbabwe," according to the citation of the U.S. National Democratic Institute.

Human rights organizations have called for Mugabe to face trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of political violence, vote-rigging and human rights violations by state agents over the past decade.

The separate trips to Tanzania this week are only the latest sign of tensions between the two leaders.

Former guerrillas, now in senior ranks in the police and military, have refused to salute Tsvangirai, who did not fight in the bush war that brought about Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980. He instead campaigned against colonial injustices as a labor leader.

And last month, Tsvangirai and his party leaders stayed away from official functions hosted by Mugabe for visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said to be on a trade and investment mission to Zimbabwe.

Ahmadinejad won Mugabe's support for his uranium-enrichment program and visited minor Iranian investments in Zimbabwe.

In a statement, Tsvangirai's party likened the visit of the militant Islamic leader to "inviting a mosquito to cure malaria."

[Associated Press; By ANGUS SHAW]

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