Harare, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe has applied to rejoin the Commonwealth, the group said Monday, marking a major step in the country’s international re-engagement after Robert Mugabe was ousted last year.
Mugabe angrily pulled Zimbabwe out of the bloc of former British colonies in 2003 after its membership was suspended over violent and graft-ridden elections the previous year.
The Commonwealth said it had received a letter dated May 15 from Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa applying to re-join.
Member countries “very much look forward to Zimbabwe’s return when the conditions are right,” said Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in a statement from London.
“Zimbabwe’s eventual return to the Commonwealth, following a successful membership application, would be a momentous occasion.”
Scotland confirmed that the Commonwealth would send observers to elections due in July or August, the first polls since Mugabe was ousted in November after a brief military takeover.
Mugabe was replaced by his former deputy Mnangagwa, a veteran ruling ZANU-PF party loyalist who was backed by senior military officers.
Mnangagwa has vowed to hold fair and free elections, and has pledged to revive the moribund economy by repairing international ties and attracting foreign investment.
Scotland called for “a credible, peaceful and inclusive election that restores citizens’ confidence, trust and hope in the development and democratic trajectory of their country.”
Britain said last month that it would strongly support Zimbabwe returning to the Commonwealth.
Zimbabwe had fractured relations with the West under Mugabe, who had held power since independence from Britain in 1980.
The government in Harare was not immediately available to comment.
If readmitted, Zimbabwe will become the fifth country to re-join the voluntary association of mostly former territories of the British empire, after Gambia, South Africa, Pakistan and Fiji.
The Gambia re-joined the Commonwealth in February this year after the impoverished west African nation was in 2013 suddenly pulled out of the bloc by ex-president Yahya Jammeh.
The other countries to have quit the organization are Ireland, which left in 1949 and the Maldives which exited in 2016.
The Commonwealth brings together 53 countries representing 2.4 billion people, under a charter pledging commitment to democracy, human rights and rule of law.
The last country to join was Rwanda, in 2009.
The organization also holds an Olympics-style multi-sport event every four years, most recently in Australia’s Gold Coast in April.
Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth at the height of violent land seizures, when white farmers were evicted in favor of landless black people in a policy that wrecked the agriculture sector and triggered national economic collapse.
Zimbabwe applies to rejoin Commonwealth
Zimbabwe applies to rejoin Commonwealth
- Zimbabwe has applied to rejoin the Commonwealth, marking a major step in its international re-engagement after Robert Mugabe was ousted last year.
- Britain said last month that it would strongly support Zimbabwe returning to the Commonwealth.
Counter protesters chase off conservative influencer during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS: Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets.
There have been protests every day since the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.
Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-ICE demonstration, saying on social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Qur’an” on the steps of City Hall. But it was not clear if he carried out that plan.
Only a small number of people showed up for Lang’s demonstration, while hundreds of counterprotesters converged at the site, yelling over his attempts to speak and chasing the pro-ICE group away. They forced at least one person to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.
Lang appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for US Senate in Florida.
In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.
“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”
National Guard ‘staged and ready’
The state guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”
Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.
The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.
During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and other aggressive tactics. The operation in the deeply liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.
On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.
Living in fear
During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.
Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson’s front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.
Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.
Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.
The White House denied the account of the re-arrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.
Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge’s ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.
“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.
DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”
“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in.”
