Zimbabwe’s bid to rejoin the commonwealth has been knocked back by the United Kingdom. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been on a diplomatic offensive to charm the western so that Zimbabwe could be readmitted to the Commonwealth of nations.
On Tuesday, the British Parliament’s International Development Committee met to discuss the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe. The Minister of State for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Harriet Baldwin appeared before the Committee to answer questions concerning the situation in Zimbabwe. She said:
Zimbabwe has written a letter to the Commonwealth secretary as with many other countries, I would say that the UK is one of the members of the Commonwealth, clearly, it has to be a unanimous decision by 53 members but as of today the UK will not be able to support that application because we don’t believe that the kind of human rights violations that we have seen from security forces in Zimbabwe is the kind of behaviour that we would like to see from members of the Commonwealth.
Zimbabwe will now find it difficult to have it hard to have cordial relations with the outside world, especially the Western countries. The country may need to dust off its Look East Policy after the latest snub by the West.
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