Zimbabwe Rejects Reform at Key Summit

Zimbabwe rejected political reform on Thursday at a summit of regional leaders designed to find ways to ease the country's political and economic crisis.

Southern African leaders are meeting to consider the crisis in Zimbabwe, but the prospects for progress looked slim after the Harare government rejected dialogue with the opposition.

"Political reform is not necessary in my country because we are a democracy like any other democracy in the world," Patrick Chinamasa, minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs, said as the two-day summit opened in the Zambian capital Lusaka.

He blamed what he called a history of brutal treatment by Zimbabwe's former colonial master Britain and said his country had held free and fair elections.

The 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been accused of being too soft on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

At the opening ceremony, Mugabe received the loudest applause from an audience which included regional ministers, diplomats and other officials.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who became the first African leader to openly criticise Mugabe when he called Zimbabwe a "sinking Titanic", struck a gentler tone on Thursday.

He urged Zimbabweans to unite and seek stability "because the opposite would push your beautiful country even further backwards".

QUIET DIPLOMACY

Mugabe sat beside South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has used quiet diplomacy to try and mediate between Harare and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Asked about Mbeki's mediation efforts and Chinamasa's rejection of any dialogue with the opposition, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told Reuters:

"As far as we are concerned the process continues until President (Mbeki) finishes what he is doing, the dialogue never died."

Mbeki was expected to brief the SADC summit on his efforts to ease the Zimbabwe crisis. But the issue had not been tabled by the end of the first day of meetings, delegates said.

SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salomao, in a press briefing before the summit started, said the regional group, holding its 27th summit, would consider options including a "hard line", "quiet diplomacy" or a "different" method.

Chinamasa on Thursday repeated that Western powers sought to oust Mugabe because he had seized white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks. He said accusations of human rights abuses were a "smokescreen" for other goals.

The opposition accuses Mugabe's security forces of using torture, a position backed by Western powers who have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, once viewed as one Africa's most promising economies.

Political tensions are rising as the world's highest inflation rate and severe food and fuel shortages ravage Zimbabweans, many of whom have fled to other SADC nations.

Zimbabwe's weak and divided opposition groups, as well as the United States and Britain, hope economic pressure will loosen Mugabe's grip after 27 years in power.

Mugabe, 83, appeared fit and relaxed walking through the conference centre between meetings.