C'wealth mission conduct questionable By A Special Correspondent - Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, privately did two things concerning Zimbabwe during the recent "retreat" by Commonwealth leaders in Australia that raise questions about today's meeting in London by the troika of Australia, Nigeria and South Africa. The first was that Blair said he had received an interim report from the Commonwealth observer mission to Zimbabwe that condemned the outcome of the presidential election - before Zimbabweans had even had a chance to vote. But how could Blair have "a Commonwealth report" when no one else had received such a report that should be channeled through the Secretariat to all members, asked one of the other 53 Commonwealth leaders at the retreat? The British leader fudged his reply and the Commonwealth leaders were left with the distinct impression that the "Blair report" had already been written in London before the Commonwealth mission even left for Zimbabwe. Their mission was simply to rubber stamp the adverse report that Britain had already written. Blair's second faux pas in Australia, according to some of the assembled Commonwealth leaders, came in his response to a remarkably conciliatory speech by Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister, Dr Stan Mudenge. The Nigerian leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo, had urged the minister not to attack Blair frontally over Britain's negative position regarding Zimbabwe, but to deal with the presidential election preparations in a dispassionate and precise manner. The Zimbabwean minister did this. Then Mudenge rose to his feet, strode over to Blair and thrust out his hand. The hand symbolised reconciliation; and Blair accepted it. Then Mudenge proposed that Britain and Zimbabwe bury past differences and work together in the future. The Commonwealth leaders, many of them in the first place unable to understand the dispute between Zimbabwe and its former coloniser, Britain, breathed a collective sigh of relief at what they hoped was the beginning of the healing process. But there was still an unanswered question in the minds of the Commonwealth leaders: How had the British Prime Minister seen the purported "Commonwealth report on Zimbabwe" when they had not? Meanwhile, back in Harare, some strange things were happening with the Commonwealth mission. They had been pre-booked by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs into the partly Government-owned Sheraton Hotel. On the spurious grounds that the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) election campaign centre was in an adjoining building, the Commonwealth observers moved out to the privately owned Meikles Hotel. There, unlike the Sheraton where the national newspaper The Herald is distributed to guests, the pro-opposition Daily News is given freely to guests. Furthermore, as anyone who has been following the Zimbabwean Press can testify, many of the Meikles farms around the country have been acquired by the State as part of the land reform programme. Meikles Hotel has long been known as a hot bed of opposition politics. During the 2000 parliamentary elections, 80 rooms at Meikles Hotel were booked by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). But because of their openly hostile position towards the President and Government, the BBC was refused accreditation to cover the presidential election. While the Commonwealth observer mission and many of the foreign journalists were assembled in the hotel, the opposition leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, moved in with them, taking a complete floor for himself and his entourage. It is notable that the Commonwealth observer mission did not move again although the opposition had now joined them in the same hotel. There was also the curious appointment of and behaviour by individual members of the Commonwealth mission who should have been sworn to secrecy as part of their mission and who should have expressed their views only through the chair of the mission. Instead, an Australian member of the Federal Parliament, Julie Bishop, vented her anger towards the President and Government, and the electoral process, in Australia's media. The composition of the Commonwealth mission raised further questions. Why were several former and recent employees of the Commonwealth Secretariat accredited as observers? Normally staff make up the Secretariat in support of a mission populated by more eminent, neutral persons. A Namibian woman member of the Commonwealth observer mission, who is the well-respected, Deputy Speaker of the National Council in her country, held different views to those stated in the interim Commonwealth report that was released only after the election results were known. Although the Commonwealth missions nominally operate on the basis of "consensus", she and others of a similar view were dismissed as "troublemakers" by one of the former Secretariat staff-cum-observer. The final straw that confirmed that Australia had abandoned any pretence of fairness to all sides in the dispute came when the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, ordered his High Commissioner in Harare not to attend Sunday's inauguration of Robert Mugabe as President of Zimbabwe. The Australians, in common with other white members of the Commonwealth, the European Union (EU), the Americans, Norwegians and the Swiss stayed away from that event saying they do not recognise the election and therefore Mugabe as the head of State. These are some of the realities that Presidents Obasanjo of Nigeria and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, confronted as they flew from Harare last night for their meeting in London tomorrow with the Australian leader who is the third member of the Commonwealth troika. Howard, however, will not be isolated at the three-member meeting at Marlborough House in London. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon of New Zealand is also known to support his country's decision to condemn Zimbabwe's presidential election. And close by, Howard will have the British government and the western media. Presidents Obasanjo and Mbeki, however, have the benefit of their own observer missions to Zimbabwe as well as the support of the vast majority of the Commonwealth. And, in line with Commonwealth consensus, the views of the majority are taken to be the views of the Commonwealth as a whole. No doubt Blair will fight on. But the solution to the present impasse lies with the people of Zimbabwe and Africa, not with the people of Britain and Europe.