Zimbabwe quits the Commonwealth

President Robert Mugabe sensationally pulled Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth after members decided to extend the southern African country’s suspension from the group of Britain and its former colonies.

“Zimbabwe has withdrawn its membership from the Commonwealth with immediate effect,” said the statement issued by the presidency last night.

Earlier, Commonwealth leaders meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, agreed to stand by their 18-month suspension of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, reaching accord in a tense debate that had threatened a split between Western and developing-world members of Britain’s former colonial empire.

In a defeat for Zimbabwe’s leader, Commonwealth heads of state declared Mugabe’s outcast status would stand until he made demanded human rights and democratic reforms in his increasingly troubled country.

In the statement, Mugabe’s government demanded that Zimbabwe be fully reinstated.

“Anything you agree on Zimbabwe which is short of this position, no matter how sweetly worded, means Zimbabwe is still a subject of the Commonwealth. This is unacceptable,” the statement said.

“It’s quits, and quits it will be.”

In Abuja, Commonwealth officials expressed dismay.

“It is not something the Commonwealth wanted,” bloc spokesman Joel Kibazo told The Associated Press, calling Zimbabwe’s pull-out “disappointing news”.

Although the Commonwealth had extended Zimbabwe’s suspension, it insisted it had also opened the way for its return.

“This was supposed to be seen as a way forward, not a way backward,” Kibazo said, saying Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon was concerned that Zimbabwe ”not ... isolate itself further” from the international community.