Mugabe says no going back on Commonwealth exit
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HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Tuesday his country would not go back on its decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth, which has extended Zimbabwe's suspension over his disputed re-election last year.
"We have turned our back on the Commonwealth. If we say we are out, we are out," Mugabe, speaking in the local Shona language, told supporters at Harare's international airport on his return from a China-Africa forum in Ethiopia.
"That's the end. We are no longer a member of the Commonwealth. ... There is no return," Mugabe added in English, in remarks broadcast on state television.
Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth December 7 after the 54-member group of mainly former British colonies renewed a suspension imposed on the country in 2002 when Mugabe won re-election in a vote that opposition groups and foreign observers said was rigged.
Over the weekend, state media said Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge had formally informed Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon that Zimbabwe was pulling out because belonging to the group was threatening its independence.
Zimbabwe's increasing isolation from the international community over policy differences with Mugabe's government comes as the African state struggles with a deepening economic crisis widely blamed on years of government mismanagement since independence from Britain in 1980.
But Mugabe says the upheaval, shown in acute shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food, record unemployment and soaring inflation, is a result of sabotage by local and foreign opponents of his drive to redistribute white-owned commercial farms among landless blacks.
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