Furious Mugabe quits Commonwealth

Robert Mugabe stormed out of the Commonwealth in fury today after Tony Blair succeeded in keeping Zimbabwe suspended from the group of 54 nations.

The ageing dictator reacted with rage to the decision, announcing his walkout - and Zimbabwe's withdrawal - almost immediately.

He accused Britain, Australia and other states which backed the continued suspension - imposed after election rigging and human rights violations - of treating his country as a "subject" state.

Mugabe's move left three days of bruising diplomacy in tatters - and the Commonwealth struggling to find new ways of exerting pressure on Zimbabwe.

Mr Blair played a key role during the talks over Zimbabwe's suspension, which overshadowed the rest of the summit agenda. He hailed the decision to maintain the pressure as the right one, in the interests of the oppressed people of Zimbabwe.

"It was important for the Commonwealth to send the right signal by maintaining the suspension," he said before landing in Glasgow early this morning. Now it is up to the Zimbabwe government to make the necessary changes."

But he admitted it was "an open question" whether Mugabe cared any longer.

The answer to that came almost immediately when the 79-year-old Zimbabwean president carried out his threat to turn his back on the Commonwealth altogether. After receiving apologetic phone calls from other African leaders, he issued a scathing statement declaring that only full re-admission would have been fair.

"Anything that you agreed to on Zimbabwe which is short of this position - no matter how sweetly worded - means Zimbabwe is still the subject of the Commonwealth. It is unacceptable. That is it. It (Zimbabwe) quits."

The Zimbabwe issue caused searing divisions at the Nigeria summit, with South African president Thabo Mbeki - a key ally of Mugabe - demanding an end to the suspension.

Mr Blair had hoped the issue would be dealt with quickly on Friday morning but it dragged on over the entire weekend, dominating the summit and forcing the Prime Minster to delay his departure. "It was three days of heavy negotiations," he admitted today. "But most of the countries accepted that if the Commonwealth stood for anything it had to stand for certain values."

Zimbabwe was suspended last year after Mugabe was accused of rigging elections to cling to power.

Under his regime, farms have been seized violently and the economy ruined, plunging millions into starvation in what was once a relatively comfortable nation.

But the punishment seems to have had little effect. Last week a report by Human Rights Watch said abuses had gone from bad to worse since the Commonwealth took action.