Zimbabwe Thursday hosted African Union chairman Alpha Omar Konare, who stopped briefly in Harare to consult with President Robert Mugabe on conflict in Africa.
The state-controlled Daily Mirror paper quoted Konare as saying his meeting with Mr. Mugabe centered on conflicts in Sudan’s Darfur region, Ivory Coast, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But Konare apparently did not mention differences between Harare and the AU over human rights and other issues.
The AU Commission on Human and People's Rights in late 2005 adopted a resolution critical of Zimbabwe's human rights record. Also in 2005, Harare refused to recognize the credentials of an AU official dispatched to look into mass forced evictions.
Konare, a former president of Mali, stressed African stability, saying that "as long as there is no peace on the continent, there will be no development," the Mirror said.
Among other problematic issues on its security agenda, the African Union finds itself in the middle of a standoff between Khartoum and the United Nations over sending a U.N. peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.
But democracy and governance director Peter Kagwanja of South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council, told reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that Konare's omission of Zimbabwe’s woes was glaring.
More reports from VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe...