HARARE - Heads of state and government of the African Union have dashed hopes that they would take President Robert Mugabe  to task for his contemptuous flouting of the global political agreement that formed the troubled coalition government.

World attention was focused on the Ugandan capital, Kampala, as African leaders opened a three-day summit yesterday, but they gave little indication they would even discuss - let alone censure - Mugabe over his continued flouting of the terms of the GPA.  
Despite international outrage over last week's unilateral appointment of ambassadors by Mugabe, without consultation with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, as the GPA prescribes, Mugabe got a warm welcome in Kampala.  He strutted into the main conference hall side-by-side with other heads of state, and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the host.

Zimbabwe was not even on the agenda at the summit. In the opening session, Museveni called for Islamic militants to be "swept out of Africa", two weeks after they killed dozens in a bomb attack in the Ugandan capital. The exploding Somali crisis has overshadowed even the AU summit's official theme, which is "Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development".

The AU, along with SADC, are the guarantors of the power-sharing agreement between Zanu (PF), and both wings of the MDC.
Mugabe is accompanied by Health and Child Welfare minister, Dr Henry Madzorera, Justice and Legal Affairs minister, Patrick Chinamasa, and Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi.

The African leaders are gathering in Kampala amid tight security and a heavy military presence. Mugabe and 30 other African heads of state were booked into the intercontinental hotel from where Somalia's al Shabaab rebels launched their first attacks - killing 73 people watching the World Cup final.

The heads of State on Sunday observed a two-minute silence for the victims of the 11 July bomb attack.
Critics say it was disheartening that Zimbabwe's long-running and festering crisis had slid off the AU agenda, overshadowed by the more recent Somali conflict, which features prominently.

Diplomats say the assembled leaders are under pressure to act now that the violence has exploded beyond Somalia's borders. Other entrenched conflicts, such as in Sudan's Darfur region and the east of Democratic Republic of the Congo, were also dominating the summit.

"As you can see from the agenda, Zimbabwe is not on it. It is not a subject that will consume their time," said a senior West African diplomat in Harare. The diplomat accused the AU of being "a club of dictators," and said Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika's unrestrained attack on the UN for indicting Sudan's Omar al-Bashir was instructive.

Mutharika, the current head of the AU, said the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for the Sudanese president for war crimes and genocide charges was "undermining African solidarity and African peace and security".

A Canadian NGO has just accused Mugabe in the ICC for politically motivated rapes committed by units of the army during the 2008 poll. But analysts say the action is futile because Zimbabwe is not a signatory to the Rome statute.

Zimbabwe remains a divisive issue in the AU. Some nations support him, while others think he has mismanaged his country and should go. Critics say, however, that it is hypocritical to side-step the Zimbabwe crisis given the constant repetition of the AU's mantra of "finding African solutions to African problems."

Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition chairman John Makumbe, who is currently in Uganda to highlight the gravity of the crisis, said: "The AU needs to do more about Zimbabwe’s political situation. We have lost hope in SADC because they have failed.”

By The Zimbabwean