Shock horror news

The Telegraph seem surprised that at least one non-democratically elected African leader refused to denounce Robert Mugabe for stealing an election, I am not. The Telegraph report that:

"President Omar Bongo of Gabon, who has held power for 41 years and won a series of widely criticised elections, gave his public backing for Mr Mugabe as leaders met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"He was elected, he took an oath, and he is here with us, so he is President and we cannot ask him more," said Mr Bongo. "He conducted elections and I think he won."

Mr Bongo added that African leaders would not allow Western governments to dictate their view of Zimbabwe. "We have even received Mugabe as a hero," he said. "We understand the attacks but this is not the way they should react. What they've done is, in our opinion, a little clumsy, and we think they could have consulted us first."

The Zimbabwe crisis could be solved by South Africa in about 3 months, but Thabo Mbeki is not interested in helping the people of Zimbabwe at the expense of the great hero of the anti-colonialist movement, Robert Mugabe. You can ignore the "leaked paper" referred to in the same article, it is one thing for Mbeki to criticise Mugabe in private, you will not see it happen in public and that is where it counts.