The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe for one year Tuesday, taking action against the regime of President Robert Mugabe a week after a controversial election returned him to power.
The surprise decision comes after the 54-nation group failed to reach agreement on sanctions against Harare ahead of the election, with African leaders rallying around the anti-colonial Mugabe, who has held power since independence from Britain in 1980.
"The committee decided to suspend Zimbabwe from the councils of the Commonwealth for one year with immediate effect," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told reporters in London.
"This issue will be revisited in 12 months time," he said.
The decision, taken by a three-way panel of Howard and presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, follows a damning report by Commonwealth observers.
The report concluded that the March 9-11 poll had been marred by violence, intimidation and suspect electoral practices designed to benefit Mugabe -- a conclusion reached by the Zimbabwean opposition and much of the West.
In former colonial power Britain, a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "He clearly welcomes the decision by the Commonwealth troika and believes that it is absolutely the right thing to do."
The panel had been expected to defer or reject calls for Zimbabwe's suspension after Mbeki and Obasanjo held talks Monday with Mugabe and defeated opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and apparently proposed to mediate in talks between the two sides.
The suspension validates "our own refusal to accept the result as legitimate," said Welshman Ncube, spokesman for Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The suspension came just after Switzerland said it was slapping sanctions on the southern African country, including a freeze on financial assets which might be held by government officials in Swiss banks.
Bureau Report
