Zimbabwe quits Commonwealth

ABUJA, Nigeria - A defiant Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies on Sunday, hours after the 54-nation bloc upheld its 18-month suspension of the southern African nation for alleged abuses of civil liberties.

"It's quits, and quits it will be," President Robert Mugabe's government said in a statement from Zimbabwe.

In a major defeat for Zimbabwe's leader, Commonwealth heads of state had declared earlier Sunday that Mugabe's outcast status would stand until he made human rights and democratic reforms.

The suspension was imposed last year after Mugabe was widely accused of using force and fraud to steal re-election, maintaining his more than two-decade rule of the troubled southern African nation.

The Commonwealth accord on Zimbabwe had averted a threatened public rift between Western and developing nations in the group, whose members represent nearly one-third of the world's 6-billion people.

The ban also appeared to maintain Zimbabwe's pariah status, although Commonwealth leaders insisted they were eager to re-engage the nation to help bring about change. In the statement, Mugabe's government insisted it would accept nothing short of full reinstatement.

"Anything you agree on Zimbabwe which is short of this position, no matter how sweetly worded, means Zimbabwe is still a subject of the Commonwealth. This is unacceptable," Zimbabwe said.

In Abuja, Nigeria, site of a four-day Commonwealth summit dominated by Zimbabwe, Commonwealth officials expressed dismay.

"It is not something the Commonwealth wanted," bloc spokesman Joel Kibazo told the Associated Press early today, calling Zimbabwe's pullout "disappointing news."

Although the Commonwealth had extended Zimbabwe's suspension, it insisted it had also opened the way for its return.

"This was supposed to be seen as a way forward, not a way backward," Kibazo said, saying Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon was concerned that Zimbabwe "not ... isolate itself further" from the international community.

Zimbabwe's announcement made good on Mugabe's repeated threat to yank his troubled nation out of the Commonwealth unless it lifted its ban.

Commonwealth chiefs insisted their move Sunday was the start of re-engaging with Zimbabwe.

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