UK’s Straw defends handshake with Mugabe

LONDON – British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, caught on camera shaking hands with Robert Mugabe, has said he didn’t immediately recognise the Zimbabwean president who was sitting in a “dark corner.”

The handshake, during a reception in New York last week, ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting, was captured by the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Newsnight programme. Britain is sharply critical of Mugabe’s regime and says Zimbabwe’s 2000 parliament elections and a 2002 presidential poll were swayed by vote rigging as well as political violence and intimidation blamed mainly on ruling party militants.Straw tried to explain away the handshake.”I hadn’t expected to see president Mugabe there,” he said.”Because it was quite dark in that corner I was being pushed towards, shaking hands with somebody just as a matter of courtesy, and then it transpired it was president Mugabe.But the fact that there is a serious disagreement between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom does not mean that you should then be discourteous or rude.”But Michael Ancram, foreign affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party, condemned Straw for the gesture.”This is a scandalous betrayal of the men and women of Zimbabwe who are suffering at the hands of Mugabe’s blood stained regime,” he said.Mugabe’s government pulled out of the Commonwealth of Britain and its former territories last year over criticism of human and democratic rights abuses in Zimbabwe.- Nampa-APBritain is sharply critical of Mugabe’s regime and says Zimbabwe’s 2000 parliament elections and a 2002 presidential poll were swayed by vote rigging as well as political violence and intimidation blamed mainly on ruling party militants.Straw tried to explain away the handshake.”I hadn’t expected to see president Mugabe there,” he said.”Because it was quite dark in that corner I was being pushed towards, shaking hands with somebody just as a matter of courtesy, and then it transpired it was president Mugabe.But the fact that there is a serious disagreement between Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom does not mean that you should then be discourteous or rude.”But Michael Ancram, foreign affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party, condemned Straw for the gesture.”This is a scandalous betrayal of the men and women of Zimbabwe who are suffering at the hands of Mugabe’s blood stained regime,” he said.Mugabe’s government pulled out of the Commonwealth of Britain and its former territories last year over criticism of human and democratic rights abuses in Zimbabwe.- Nampa-AP