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afrol News, 25 October - A team of Commonwealth ministers is arriving Zimbabwe today, with the intention to help to mediate the country's land and political crisis and judge whether the government's human rights policy is improving. A new Amnesty International report however concludes that "state-sponsored repression, including political killings and torture, continues to worsen in Zimbabwe" since the signing of the Abuja agreement in September. The Committee of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers on Zimbabwe is visiting the country after an invitation by the Mugabe government, extended during the Committee's meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, on 6 September 2001. The Committee is lead by Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido and comprises ministers from Australia, Canada, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. It is supposed to meet President Mugabe and other members of government, opposition leaders and representatives of civil society in the country. According to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon, "This visit represents an important step towards implementation of the Abuja Agreement. I hope that all concerned will be able to agree an implementation timetable and that the visit will be guided by the Commonwealth spirit of dialogue and co-operation which underpinned the Abuja discussions." Leading Zimbabwean political analyst Masipula Sithole however was sceptical to whether the Committee would be able to uncover the real developments in Zimbabwe after Abuja Agreement. He told the news agency Reuters the "ministers are going to hear all the right words from the government, but I don't see how they will get the right action." Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge recently claimed that the government is doing its part to implement the promises it made in Abuja. However, Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers' Union, which mostly represents white farmers, denies this. In a statement, the organisation claims farm violence has continued, and even increased in some places, since the accord was signed. The human rights group Amnesty International is even more critical towards the recent development in Zimbabwe. In its new report Amnesty said that "despite the human rights benchmarks being set for Zimbabwe in the Abuja and Cotonou Agreements, the human rights situation remains serious and without expected improvement". The Amnesty report documents a number of human rights violations saying they were "predominately by war veterans and other supporters of the ruling party, and in some cases with the complicity of the police. Supporters of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), have reportedly set up secret locations where they intimidate, assault and torture opposition supporters. There are also reports that opposition supporters have been assaulted in police stations." Zimbabwean human rights organizations have reported as many as 50 politically motivated killings since early 2000 and more political killings took place during several by-elections in September 2001. Amnesty states that it "fears the situation will deteriorate if the international community does not take preventive action." The group therefore appeals to the European Union and the Commonwealth to send international observers as soon as possible, ahead of the Presidential elections due before April 2002. The 6 September 2001 Abuja Agreement was reached by Commonwealth nations in response to widespread human rights violations and land seizures in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean government agreed to stop the uncontrolled seizure of farms owned by white nationals and respect the rule of law. In return, ex-colonial power Britain agreed to compensate white farm owners whose land would be redistributed to poor black families with some US$ 53 million (€ 48 million).
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