Zimbabwe row mars Bush's tour

Bush and Mbeki emphasised their points of agreement Zimbabwe's opposition leader has accused South African President Thabo Mbeki of making mischievous statements to George Bush about the crisis in his country. Speaking at a news conference with the US president, Mr Mbeki said talks between President Robert Mugabe's Government and the opposition were progressing.

But Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said: "Such statements are manifestly partisan, designed to buy time for the beleaguered illegitimate Mugabe regime."

George Bush is on a five-day tour of Africa and has pledged to work towards bringing stability to the continent.

There has been absolutely no political engagement between the two political parties

Morgan Tsvangirai On Tuesday, President Mbeki and President Bush spent several hours talking in Pretoria where they discussed the situation in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

The BBC's Barnaby Phillips, in Pretoria, said the two leaders had different approaches to the problem, but were very diplomatic after their talks.

President Bush said he and President Mbeki shared the same objectives and that he trusted President Mbeki to be an "honest broker."

But Mr Tsvangirai said Mr Mbeki's statement about talks in Zimbabwe was "without foundation whatsoever".

"Since the aborted talks between the MDC and Zanu PF in April 2002, there has been absolutely no political engagement between the two political parties," Mr Tsvangirai said.

"The Mugabe regime has remained intractable and sustained an arrogant and defiant programme of violence, torture, murder, rape and all manner of crimes against humanity.

"Therefore statements claiming that there is dialogue going on are patently false and mischievous.

Morgan Tsvangirai attacked Mr Mbeki's statement "Such statements are manifestly partisan, designed to buy time for the beleaguered illegitimate Mugabe regime and ward off potential genuine brokers," Mr Tsvangirai said.

The US president said he had encouraged Mr Mbeki to "continue to work for the return of democracy" in Zimbabwe.

"I do not have any intention of second-guessing his tactics, we share the same outcome."

The US has taken a strong line on President Mugabe since his election win last year.

It has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe's government and called for Mr Mugabe's resignation.

But South Africa has instead called for dialogue between Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition party MDC.

Our correspondent says President Mbeki evidently welcomes American moves to lift restrictions on trade and to spend more on foreign aid.

Bush tour diary Bush visit in pictures Congress plans Africa aid cut But he is also adamant that Africans must take the prime responsibility in resolving African conflicts - advice which President Bush appears to have taken on board.

President Bush had earlier pledged to work towards bringing stability across Africa.

He said his administration would help resolve Africa's crises, from the civil war in Liberia to the Aids epidemic in southern Africa.

He also praised South Africa, which he called a "force for freedom, stability and progress".

He praised efforts to tackle the disease in South Africa, which has the largest HIV-infected population in the world.

Mr Bush reiterated his pledge to spend $15bn on fighting the disease over the next five years throughout the continent.

Why is Bush listening to the likes of Mbeki on Zimbabwe. Mbeki is an idiot who is itching to copycat Mugabe's invasion of white-owned farms. He has also said that AIDS isn't caused by HIV, claiming it is a poverty-related rather than a sexually transmitted disease.

I am very disappointed by some of the things Bush has said on this trip, particularly praising the anti-colonial rabble rousers like Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah and Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta as heores. Which they were not.

Mr. Bush should learn a few things on Ghana and Nkrumah before lambasting Britain's wicked colonial regime in Ghana.

True Ghana was one of the main outposts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade (far smaller and less long-lasting that the Islamic slave trade in Africa incidentally).

Ghana, or the Gold Coast as it was then, did not become a colony until British efforts to outlaw the Slave trade in the 19th century. The Royal Navy was dispatched to the east and west coast of Africa to stop Arab and African slavers. In many ways it was the 19th century's equivalent of the War on Terror.

The Ashanti tribe in Ghana refused to stop dealing in slaves, a practice that had made them hugely rich. So, at the pleading of other tribes, Britain attacked the Ashanti and made the Gold Coast a Crown Colony, which afforded great protection to the tribes from which the slaves were captured.

The Brits did not allow white settlers to come into Ghana and then introduced cocoa to the colony. Within a decade the Gold Coast was the world's leading producer and the richest colony in Africa. Under British supervision it also became the world's leading producer of Managnese. The British built railways, schools and hospitals across the colony giving free education for the first time to many Africans. It then trained them for the Civil Service. Thousands, including Kwame Nkrumah, were sent to abroad to University at British taxpayers' expense. Sadly Mr. Nkrumah was sent to Lincoln Univeristy, Pennsylvania where he was influenced by black literature and Marxist writings. The British built the University of Ghana, perphaps the most repsected institute of higher learning in West Africa. It allowed the Africans to form political parties, and slowly integrated them into government. A responsible approach given the huge amount of distance Ghanaians had to cover from bush to nation-state founded on democratic principles. Nkrumah, however, wanted independence "in the shortest possible time" and called a General Strike. He had support because many Ghanaians couldn't see the sense in an orderly apporaoch to self-government. He was briefly jailed, because he had broken the law, but his party won the general elections of 1951 so the British immediately set him free and asked him to form a government. Ghana became independent in 1957 and Nkrumah was at the helm. He was left with a treasury with half a billion dollars (again British taxpayers' money) in foreign exchange reserves. Nine years later the country was a billion dollars in debt. Apart from stealing huge sums, Knrumah poured money into grandiose Socialist schemes like the Akosombo Dam, one of the world's largest. It was a totally unnecessay project and crippled the economy. Despite inheriting a constitution based on multi-party democracy he had outlawed other parties within a year of independence. He imprisoned 3,000 political opponents. He turned over private businesses to corrupt, inefficient state-run enterprises. He set up a huge and expensive private army answerable to him alone. Many were to be killed. By 1964 Ghana could no longer feed itself -- less than eight years after being one of the most self-sufficient countries in the region.

And so the inevitable happened. In 1966, nine years after independence, Nkrumah was overthrown in a coup and exiled.

Nkrumah destroyed his country and betrayed his people. Bush should be villifying him, not praising him.

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